You never know when inspiration might hit. For Michelle Adepoju, lightning struck during a post-college trip in Western Africa. As a teen Adepoju, who was raised in the UK. in a Nigerian immigrant family, liked to craft new clothes from thrift store finds. During her African trek, Adepoju realized she could turn her hobby into a business. She merged contemporary designs with traditional African techniques like weaving to create her brand Kílẹ̀ńtàr in 2019. Kílẹ̀ńtàr sells luxury statement pieces from gowns to swimwear to jewelry. “When we think of luxury, it's usually Chanel or Hermès,” says Adepoju. We are putting African craftsmanship on the map for luxury fashion.” The brand has dressed celebrities including Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Osaka, and Victoria Monét. Adepoju debuted her designs at New York Fashion Week in 2024.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00When you were in those early stages of your life, creating your own pieces that you had bought,
00:05you know, secondhand, did you ever envision yourself building a brand one day or was this
00:11truly just something you did for fun to express yourself? Yes, no, I had no idea. I didn't think
00:15I would ever be working in fashion. Yeah. I literally just saw it as something that was fun.
00:19It was interesting to me. I was always curious. So doing this was just true self-expression,
00:25literally. And I loved it. So I guess when I look back now, I feel like it makes sense now.
00:33Yeah. In hindsight, it's like it was all there. Yeah, exactly. Before starting the brand,
00:38though, what were you doing professionally? I was working in marketing. And what kind of
00:42experiences or skills or tasks that you had to do in that industry do you think you've brought into
00:48building this brand today? I'm sure a lot. Yes. Considering you're always having to market it.
00:51Yeah, definitely communication. And I think that for me, it's so important to communicate with the
00:57customer, with the consumer. And that way is always changing. So how do we reach our consumers
01:02in a way that's relevant to today, but still staying true to ourselves? And I think with marketing,
01:09that's really, truly the power of it. And I think we've been able to do that really well with our brand
01:13and really being able to put people on our journey of our storytelling, how our crafts are made.
01:18So that was really, I guess that really helped me. Yeah, definitely. How would you then, if you are,
01:25you know, selling this brand to consumers, sharing the story about it, how do you go about describing
01:30really what makes you guys different today? Yeah, for us, I think we did a few key things
01:35that really made us stand out. And that was prioritizing quality and craftsmanship and not
01:40being able to really showcase that and building trust with our consumers. So putting them on that journey,
01:45showing them truly how the brand, how the products have been made and being transparent with them.
01:51And what was really important for me was also building trust with our artisans in Bukinna Faso,
01:56for example. When I first started, I wasn't able to have wholesale orders or make a lot of fabrics with
02:05our artisans. And that's because they really needed to trust us. And they really needed to
02:09understand that we value the work that they are doing and the rich tradition of what they are
02:16doing. And we were able to really showcase this online as well as building something new. At the
02:21time, I hadn't really seen these type of styles, whereas a corset top or this type of modern dress
02:29in traditional fabrics, hand-woven fabrics, hand-dyed fabrics, in the way that Kilenta was doing it.
02:35And that really set us apart and made people curious. How does your design process look today,
02:40from maybe first idea you have to a sketch to then the products coming to life? Can you walk me through
02:45what the steps are? Yeah, so now we've been able to build an amazing team where I will come up with the
02:51design concept, the sketches with my design assistant, and then we would create a pattern,
02:59sample it, and most times, like this fabric, for example, design the fabric that I'd want,
03:05and send the swatches over the colours to our weavers who would make the fabrics,
03:09and then we'd start producing it like that. So everything is much slower. We make everything
03:14in-house at the moment, and that's the way we've been able to, that's the way we did it.
03:21And is this all happening in London? Are you working with weavers elsewhere? Where is the
03:25team located today? Yes, I work with weavers across West Africa in five different locations,
03:30different kinds of artisans from beading in Kenya, hand-dying in Nigeria, weaving in Burkina Faso,
03:37Senegal for gold jewelry making. So we we've been really been able to, at the beginning, there was
03:44just one of me and my seamstress, and now we've been able to grow the brand to where we have,
03:52we work with over 40 artisans across the continent in five different locations. So we create it all in
03:59this place, and then we ship it globally. How did you find the right partners in those artisans? You
04:04know that I'm sure that as you have this vision in your mind, you need to make sure that the people
04:08you're working with have the same vision or are able to help you execute on these things. How did
04:12you land on the right partners to help you do so? I think for me, it's very important to share the
04:19vision, and I've been really blessed to have women who are able to believe in that. At the beginning,
04:25even the woman I was working with, we kind of took a chance on each other. She was starting her career
04:30in she wanted to learn how to sew, but she knew how to make patterns, and I wanted to start my brand.
04:35So I think it's really important to just build a team that understands your values and shares the
04:42same like ethics as you. And I think for me, it's just been more so being curious, going to these
04:49different places, speaking with the right people, connecting with the right people,
04:53and then eventually being able to build this type of team.