On this week’s African Voices Changemakers, CNN International’s Arit Okpo meets Nigerian designer Nkwo Onwuka. Her dedication to sustainability extends from the fashion world, creating modern pieces with traditional methods, while also helping survivors of terrorism carve out a new path.
Nkwo Onwuka, the creative director of Nkwo Design Studios, is focused on sustainable, ethical fashion. She tells Okpo that this focus on sustainability started at a young age, “When we were growing up, we weren’t allowed to waste things and we were quite resourceful. I’ve always also been very much a nature girl. And I’ve seen how much damage human beings are actually doing to the planet. And so, when I started my brand, I always wanted to be intentional and mindful about the environment.”
The brand was launched in 2007 in the United Kingdom. But Onwuka’s visits to Nigeria over the years highlighted a problem she wanted to help solve, “Because in Nigeria, we have such a huge tailoring culture where people make clothes, there were huge amounts of waste. It came to me that there must be a way to solve both problems with each other. So, we could preserve our crafts and we could reduce waste by actually using waste as a raw material.”
After leaving the UK, Onwuka moved back to Nigeria and set up her design studio in Abuja. Her brand became known for upcycling second-hand denim, but she says wanted to go one step further and make a new fabric, “Trying to preserve traditional crafts skills and use up textile waste, I started to experiment on how could we make a new fabric because Africa is known for its textile craftsmanship. Maybe it was time for something new. I didn’t know what would become, but I just knew that there had to be a way to do something with all this waste.”
This new fabric, which she named Dakala cloth, was created in 2017. Along with international recognition for Dakala cloth, Onwuka believes it serves a bigger purpose, one that aligns with her values, “Dakala web is part of our Weaving Waste into Wealth project. Weaving Waste into Wealth is a program that I came up with a couple of years ago, but we couldn’t start it last year because of the pandemic. It’s really a way of using waste to weave and selling those products.”
The Weaving Waste into Wealth programme was started in the Kuchingoro IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp where Onwuka taught women how to make rugs, bags, and other items out of waste material. Working with two NGOs on the project, Onwuka says she hopes it will make a difference to the lives of the women who live in the Kuchingoro camp, “The fuel that pushes my brand is community. And so, I think it’s important that we all work together for the greater good. With the women, we’ve taught them how to use fabric waste and turn them into these amazing pieces of magic.”
Onwuka says she’s constantly thinking of how to use her platform to inspire and make sustainability the norm in Nigeria’s fashion industry. She tells Okpo about her goals for the future, “I would like to in the years to come, do a lot more experimentation. I’m actually wanting to have a centre for the philosophy of less. And it’s basically saying, why would you create so much when it causes you to live less of a life? The centre would really be where we sort of experiment with ways we can use waste as a raw material. It would also be about helping artisans, especially those who are the last of their craft.”
‘African Voices Changemakers’ airs on Saturday 3rd July at 0930 SAST on CNN International
The show also airs at the following times:
Saturday 3rd July at 1830 SAST
Sunday 4th July at 0430 SAST, 0730 SAST, 1230 SAST and 2330 SAST
Tuesday 6th July at 1845 SAST
Wednesday 7th July at 1845 SAST
