Spiritual Wabi Sabi: SOUNDS OF 16 with BUBU OGISI
Conducted by Tushar Hathiramani
We sit down with the infinitely magnetic Bubu Ogisi. On this particular day, we are at AMAH Studio shooting campaign images for IAMISIGO’s upcoming SS26 collection (which will show at Copenhagen Fashion Week on August 6th). We are listening to some jazz as a heavy Lagos storm is brewing. Our conversations meander from talking about the material choices for SS26 to redefining what it means to be an artist and designer practicing world-building.
Courtesy Nosarieme Garrick
Part One: New Material Horizons
Tushar: I’ve known you for about 10 years now and in this time, I’ve always seen how you push the boundaries of material exploration through your collections. What new materials are you exploring this time around?
Bubu: I’m now going deeper into the exploration of harder materials. Glass, plastic, metal and sisal feature heavily in this collection but I’m also exploring the IAMISIGO archives so there’s a lot of materials that you’ve seen before - cotton, jute, raffia, agave sisalana and recycled clothing. What feels different now is that before I was really exploring the physical anatomies of these materials - how far they could stretch, tie, hold. Now I’m exploring these metaphysical attributes along with the spiritual. I’m going from the 3rd dimension to the 4th!
Tushar: Can you break this down. What does this mean?
Bubu: In the human conception of reality, there is a tripartite agreement between the body, space and time. Materials, or the material world, act in between these three conceptions which means that materials can act as whispers between ourselves, our environments and our futures. All my collections explore the relationships between these aspects of cognitive reality- what is seen vs. what is unseen. With this collection, I’m thinking about the body itself as an ‘environment’ or ‘place’ to be adorned by materials. Does that make sense now?
Tushar: Kinda. It sounds very spiritual, almost technological.
Bubu: It is. How do we see our bodies as a technological device and how do we conduct that through our beings? This is how my people have perceived the world through time, though instead of thinking of it as three unique perspectives, everything exists together. The body, mind, spirit, these all exist now and together- there’s no separation. That’s how I want my work to be viewed as well - as this simple yet highly spiritual conception of reality. Yes, it’s fashion. Yes, it’s art. Yes, it’s design. But it’s also full of the magical realism of the divine, i.e technology.
Tushar: How does this translate into the collection then?
Bubu: The collection is broken into four dimensions: body, mind, spirit and emotion (energy in motion). I’m playing a lot with this idea of expansion and contraction. The mind and body as contracted perspectives and the spirit and emotion as expanded. Expansion is represented by materials like brass, aluminium, glass and plastic. Contraction is represented by cotton, sisal, raffia, jute and recycled clothing.
Tushar: These materials feel….hard.
Bubu: Haha! Yes, that is the idea. I’m really looking at how the body can hold materials that are now thought of as existing only as part of space / the built environment. For example, sisal is primarily used in the building industry in West Africa but in other parts of the continent it is used for healing and homeware, with the threads having a very high tensile strength. The wearer is meant to feel powerful when adorning themselves with this. The materials I use are portals to new ways of thinking and being in the world. As humans, we haven’t been intimate with materials like these in centuries.
Courtesy Nosarieme Garrick
Part Two: Hacking the Spiritual
Tushar: You are weaving many stories into the garments. First, there’s the story of how the pieces are actually made. Then you weave in other narratives into the garments?
Bubu: What we wear is not embellishment, it is adornment. African traditions and language were oral and musical, and rarely ever written. Everything - body, mind, spirit and emotion - existed in the same infinite plane together. So what we wear carries great meaning because it announces who you are before you open your mouth to speak. This is the power of what we wear. This is my primary narrative.
Tushar: Tell me more.
Bubu: Humans have a bio-electrical field around them that’s created by minerals and metals moving around in our blood stream. This creates an energy field around you that is constantly interacting with the world. Your mind creates another form of energy, which we now call emotion. It has the ability to manifest and bring forth new ideas from another world - the spiritual. Your body is the vessel that holds it all to the physical. I’ve explained three very distinct interactions that are happening completely unbeknownst to you.
Tushar: And what does your work have to do with this?
Bubu: What if we could wear materials that made our energy and emotive fields better? What if we could use materials to transport ourselves in time to when they were being used as divine interceptors?
Tushar: That’s heavy.
Bubu: Not really. It’s how we used to live before but we’ve forgotten that way of life now. My mission with IAMISIGO is to remind people of this alternative embodied spiritual existence.
Tushar: Do you decide if someone is spiritually worthy enough to wear your pieces?
Bubu: Yes, I do :) IAMISIGO wears you, you don’t wear IAMISIGO. I know it sounds pompous but that’s just how it is.
Courtesy Nosarieme Garrick
Part Three: Sounds, Emotions and Feelings
Tushar: For this playlist, what were you thinking about when you made it?
Bubu: Inspiration for the collection: highly synthesized, ancient traditional technologies, composed, put together. It’s a soundtrack for becoming. Every sound has texture, just like every material. I wanted the playlist to feel like stepping into a space where spirit and circuitry are in harmony. Where your heartbeat matches the beat, and suddenly you're not in Lagos, you're somewhere else entirely — in a realm that’s soft, tough, and transcendent all at once.
Tushar: You’ve always said sound is as important to your process as sight and touch.
Bubu: It is. When I’m designing, I don’t just think of function, I think of feeling through form. Sound is a form of memory, of code. It activates a part of you that visuals can’t always reach. Some tracks in this playlist are there to stir something in your chest. Others are there to discipline your spirit. But together, they help conjure the collection.
Tushar: So, if IAMISIGO is a portal, then this playlist is…
Bubu: …the frequency you tune into before you cross over.
