{"id":118669,"date":"2019-02-28T16:49:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T21:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/?p=118669"},"modified":"2019-02-28T16:49:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T21:49:02","slug":"from-nigeria-to-london-kk-obi-on-creating-an-alternative-identity-in-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/?p=118669","title":{"rendered":"From Nigeria to London, KK Obi on creating an alternative identity in fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\n.centerimg {padding:4em 7em;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg2 {padding:4em 4em;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg3 {padding:4em 10em;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg4 {padding:4em 20em;margin:20px 0;}\n.sidetxt {padding:16em 2em 16em 2em;;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg img {margin-bottom:0px;}\n.instagram-media {margin:auto !important;}\n#wp-content hr {margin: 40px auto 80px auto;width: 80%;}\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"centerimg3\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/51.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"3110\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-118744\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/51.jpg 2500w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/51-514x640.jpg 514w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/51-1029x1280.jpg 1029w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\" \/><br \/>\n<small><a href=\"\/\/models.com\/models\/jeremiah-berko-fourdjour\">Jeremiah Berko Fourdjour<\/a> and <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/models\/ottawa-kwami\">Ottawa Kwami<\/a> by <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/people\/trinity-ellis\">Trinity Ellis<\/a><\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p>For every Abloh and Enninful there&#8217;s definitely an Obi in the wings, grinding and striving to make their mark in the fashion industry. As Black History Month comes to a close, we shine a light on <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/people\/KK-Obi\">KK Obi<\/a>, a transplanted African finding his way through the industry labyrinth one strategic move at a time. As interim Creative Director of Seventh Man, a magazine based in London, KK has taken on the challenge of defining the zeitgeist and fashion mood of the moment. <\/p>\n<p><em>Interview by Mac Folkes for Models.com<br \/>\nAll images courtesy of KK Obi from Seventh Man Magazine Winter 2018\/19 Issue<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg2\">\n<p><strong>Mac Folkes: Tell me a little about yourself KK?<\/strong><br \/>\nKK Obi: I was born in Nigeria and lived there until I was 17. At that point my parents sent me to the UK to do my A levels and then I continued on to university. I decided to stay in the UK and discovered fashion and the fashion industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How long have you been in the UK?<\/strong><br \/>\nI have been in the UK since 2003.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What did you study at university?<\/strong><br \/>\nI finished with a degree in chemical engineering.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s funny, when I went to university I studied engineering as well. But after the second year I woke up and thought: WTF am I doing here?<\/strong><br \/>\nExactly. I never really had a WTF moment. My father was a civil engineer. My parents were not literary in that sense. He played piano. He was creative, but math was definitely his strong suit. That was passed down to me. So I was encouraged to pursue a career along that path. That\u2019s how I found my way to chemical engineering.\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/110.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1875\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-118741\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/110.jpg 2500w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/110-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/110-1280x960.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\" \/><br \/>\n<small>Kavi by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hendrik.schneider\/?hl=en\">Hendrik Schneider<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg2\">\n<p><strong>How did you find your way to fashion from engineering?<\/strong><br \/>\nI have always loved clothes. I can remember crying and crying to my mother for her to buy me certain articles of clothing. In my first year of university I started going to London. That\u2019s when I discovered that there were different options. It was a revelation for me that I can do other things like writing for example. In London, I started to meet some very interesting people. I made some really good friends that guided me and that\u2019s how I eventually ended up in styling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I can totally empathize with your story. I am also the child of immigrants. I think what happens is, if you show any sign of promise, you are naturally guided down this path towards being a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Because those are seen as the respectable careers to have and you don\u2019t really get the sense that there\u2019s a very large world out there and that there\u2019s also a very large world of possibility.<\/strong><br \/>\nThat\u2019s exactly my point. That there is this very large world out there that no one tells you about. <\/p>\n<p><strong>When it comes to people of color, not just black people, that if you show any sort of promise you are sent down a particular path. Obviously magazines were at my house. I had subscriptions to fashion magazines. But for some reason it didn\u2019t dawn on me at a young age that actual people put them together.<\/strong><br \/>\nSame. I wouldn\u2019t say that we had magazines, but I am certain that I must have heard of Vogue or seen a copy. I never really understood how print came together even though my grandfather had a printing press. I just thought these things kind of happened. I never understood that there was an entire industry behind them. That\u2019s something that I had no idea about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>When you watch TV for example, you always see doctors and lawyers and maybe police and firemen, but that\u2019s about it.<\/strong><br \/>\nI know a moment for me was when <em>The Devil Wears Prada<\/em> came out. I remember going to the cinema with my mom. That was a revelation. I had no idea that was how an entire industry operated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So <em>The Devil Wears Prada<\/em> was your revelatory moment?<\/strong><br \/>\nI wouldn\u2019t say that, it was more just me meeting other people, but it did give me an understanding that it was an industry. I didn\u2019t understand that before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell me about some of the people that you met early on in London.<\/strong><br \/>\nI met Jordan Young who was studying at Goldsmiths at the time. He then introduced me to Emmanuel Balogun, an artist and writer, a person that would subsequently become one of my best friends. We all started going to this place called Boombox. Boombox is where I would say that it all happened for me.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"centerimg3\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/41.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"3260\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-118743\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/41.jpg 2500w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/41-491x640.jpg 491w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/41-982x1280.jpg 982w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\" \/><br \/>\n<small><a href=\"\/\/models.com\/models\/jeremiah-berko-fourdjour\">Jeremiah Berko Fourdjour<\/a>  by <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/people\/trinity-ellis\">Trinity Ellis<\/a><\/small>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"centerimg2\">\n<p><strong>Aaaaahhhhh, the club&#8230;.<\/strong><br \/>\nIt was an amazing experience. All these people coming together in a quest of exploration and discovery. People both random and famous with the focus being&#8230;Let\u2019s dress up! I was in Sheffield at university and planning the entire time what I would wear to the club in London on the weekends on a Sunday night. Then jump on a 2.5 hour train ride back to Sheffield.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a lot of parallels to my story. When people ask me all the time: Where do you know this person? How do you know that person? My reply is often always the same: I met them at the club. A recent friend of mine, that happens to be a film director, quipped back: You didn\u2019t meet me at the club. To which I replied: But a DJ introduced us.<\/strong><br \/>\nBe it either music or a social connection, the club brings together like minded people. The potential of meeting people that actually connect with you is great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So it\u2019s in the club where you are starting to meet people with a more artistic bend. How did meeting those people get you thinking about moving into fashion? Was styling your first choice?<\/strong><br \/>\nTo be honest, I didn\u2019t know anything about styling. I read and collected British Vogue at university. It wasn\u2019t until meeting people in London and learning about platforms like Show Studio and reading independent publications like Dazed and i-D did styling ever come into play. From this I thought that I could give this fashion thing a go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you ever see yourself reflected back at you when you where reading British Vogue or did that happen when you started reading the independent magazines?<\/strong><br \/>\nAt the time British Vogue wasn\u2019t at all reflective of my interests. When I read it, it always came from a standpoint that I am Nigerian, this is obviously foreign and how can I bring those two things together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Were you trying to build a bridge between what you knew as a Nigerian and what you were learning from these new outlets?<\/strong><br \/>\nExactly<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was your big break?<\/strong><br \/>\nAt the end of my third year at university I was encouraged by my peers to get an internship. I sent out handwritten letters to a few magazines. One landed on the desk of a woman that had an African sounding name at Tatler. She slotted me in and gave me an internship. When my degree was finished I started there. I unfortunately never met her because by the time I started, she was already gone. Somehow in my imagination I think she wanted to help someone like herself. Because to be honest with you, Tatler at the time was a very white office, a place for the upper classes. Needless to say, they didn\u2019t have very many people of different ethnic backgrounds working there.\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/21.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"3750\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-118742\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/21.jpg 2500w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/21-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/21-853x1280.jpg 853w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2500px) 100vw, 2500px\" \/><br \/>\n<small><a href=\"\/\/models.com\/models\/joel-leon-perreira\">Joel Leon Perreira<\/a> in Martine Rose S\/S 19 by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hendrik.schneider\/?hl=en\">Hendrik Schneider<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg2\">\n<p><strong>How long did that last?<\/strong><br \/>\nI was there for three months. I was amazed by the Cond\u00e9 Nast environment. I took it all in, and soaked it all up. While Tatler has the potential to be a great magazine, it was definitely not for me. I wanted to experience other things. From there I went to TANK. Much different from the structure of Conde Nast, but an important learning experience. Then an opportunity came about that I could not turn down at a new magazine called ARISE. ARISE was the first of its kind. An international African magazine. I had to work there. I had to be involved. I got an internship and ended up staying there four years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was your position there?<\/strong><br \/>\nI went from intern, to fashion assistant to junior fashion editor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you make the transition from there to where you are now?<\/strong><br \/>\nWhilst at ARISE I met Dean Hau who had started a magazine called Seventh Man. When I left ARISE he asked if I would join the team at Seventh Man. It was a very small publication and all freelance based so I was predominantly contributing for him. I spent three years working with him. In the last six months, he\u2019s decided to take some time off. So I have stepped in to curate the magazine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your official title at Seventh Man?<\/strong><br \/>\nCreative Director<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell me about this latest issue.<\/strong><br \/>\nFashion is about change. There is so much change right now that it\u2019s tricky for the mood to find definition. It has changed and is changing at such a rapid pace. I happened to watch a documentary about Rachel Dolezal. Her story and inner turmoil spoke to me and seems to speak to this moment in fashion, so I decided to make Identity Crisis the theme of this latest issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier you said that you have always tried to reconcile who you where with what you were reading in British Vogue and experiencing at Tatler. Do you feel at some point that you have experienced an identity crisis?<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen I first moved to the UK I certainly had an identity crisis. I couldn\u2019t reconcile what I had been taught to many things that I was now experiencing. Nigeria is very conservative and I was also raised Anglican. The past years I too have been on a path to self discovery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think fashion has allowed you a sense of reconciliation?<\/strong><br \/>\nFashion has definitely enabled me to come to a place where I feel comfortable in myself and confident in my abilities.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"centerimg4\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/IMG_20190227_144255-960x1280.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"1280\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-118762\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/IMG_20190227_144255-960x1280.jpg 960w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2019\/02\/IMG_20190227_144255-480x640.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><br \/>\n<small>KK Obi courtesy of KK Obi<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--pp-thumb-start--><!--PictPress found no dir \/2019\/02\/118669--><!--pp-thumb-end--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeremiah Berko Fourdjour and Ottawa Kwami by Trinity Ellis For every Abloh and Enninful there&#8217;s definitely an Obi in the wings, grinding and striving to make their mark in the fashion industry. As Black History Month comes to a close, we shine a light on KK Obi, a transplanted African finding his way through the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10414,16,2],"tags":[12016,11101,12015,11824,12014],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118669"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118850,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118669\/revisions\/118850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}