It’s been quite a ride since Winnie’s Paris debut, 18 months and a lifetime ago. Now, designer Idris Balogun is finding inspiration in entirely different places.
“We were kind of following a formula for what new brands are supposed to do,” he allowed during a Zoom interview. Among the lessons learned during the pandemic—like reconnecting with craft and the reasons why he loves fashion—he cites taking inspiration from his own Brooklyn backyard.
“I’m inspired by people who persevere and who have gotten involved with making society better on a grassroots level,” he said. “My neighbors and I have gone from being strangers to being comrades, just by making noise at 7 p.m. to salute health care workers. I hope people keep that mindset; we don’t need hurricanes, pandemics, and political upheaval for people to have empathy toward others,” he said.
Camaraderie and togetherness inform a collection that incorporates change on several levels, starting with artistic pilgrimages like the ones Nina Simone and James Baldwin made in the 1960s, and how they were shaped by new environments. Africa, both then and now, was key. A recent journey to Senegal, where Balogun spent six weeks experiencing the local way of life, offered a sense of connection and allowed him to hone his color palette. Usually a neutrals kind of guy, he got “a little more realistic and also more romantic,” which accounts for the pops of fuchsia, rust, and sage.
The artist Tau Lewis continues to inspire him to keep recycling and upcycling. A pretty pleated white number, for example, is made of vintage silk that was hand-pleated and wrapped “like a cup on top of a cup” into a dress that, like other pieces in this collection, references the offhand glamour of party pictures from ’60s-era Africa. A Winnie spin on the cable knit recasts a traditional West African aso-oke pattern in cashmere, and Balogun added that, after long lockdowns spent in prosaic sweats, people have started requesting this deluxe version.
Not that it’s all about dressing down. For men, the designer considered “what happens once the blazer comes off.” The answer: boxy, tailored camp shirts in shades of lilac or royal blue. Sweats and Japanese denim were upcycled into jackets, meaning that no two are the same and each treads lightly. A trove of oversized vintage trenches got a fresh wax and a new life, a tribute to his time at Burberry.
Balogun relishes sleight of hand, as on a “four-legged” trouser with a curved inseam and closure: When the wearer stands straight, it looks like a trouser, but when s/he moves, it looks like a skirt. That number is likely to be picked up and adapted, in the same vein that his friend, the French-Sudanese stylist Azza Yousif, worked one of this season’s dresses into a whole new look.
“For me, that’s the beauty of designing clothing,” Balogun said. “It comes out of your hat and someone else finds other ways of wearing it.”
