Meet The Nigerian Creatives Picked for Victoria’s Secret World Tour
In a bold revamp of its fashion show, the lingerie brand has tapped Korty EO, Ashley Okoli, Bubu Ogisi, Eloghosa Osunde, and Wavy The Creator, who will all be featured in a documentary slated for a September release.
On May 10, top lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret announced that it was reinventing its annual fashion show. The show will now be a global tour featuring a cast of 20 women creators from around the world, including Bogotá, Lagos, London, and Tokyo. These creatives will showcase a collection in the brand’s production of a feature-length documentary film, set to premiere in September.
The last Victoria’s Secret catwalk show was in 2018 and came along with a ratings drop. A contributing factor was the brand’s refusal to be size-inclusive. In a lingerie landscape where upstarts like Rihanna’s Savage Fenty appeared to be taking over, Victoria’s Secret was ostensibly fossilized in the past.
While there have been attempts to correct this – the brand dropped its Angels for the VS Collective – this revival in 2023 feels like its boldest overhauling yet. Among the creative ensemble for the project are four Nigerian women spread across art, fashion, film, and music: Korty EO,Ashely Okoli, Eloghosa Osunde, Bubu Ogisi, and Wavy The Creator.
They represent the House of Lagos. And it's not a surprise that Lagos — a city that has earned its place as a creative generator on the world stage — was enlisted.
Scroll down to learn more about these five talented women.
Korty Eniola Olanrewaju — Filmmaker
Before becoming a YouTube sensation, Korty’s modeling stint put her on runways for Lagos Fashion Week and GTCO Fashion Weekend in 2018. Korty has a leg in digital media publishing (Zikoko) as a content writer, and once oversaw content on Mr Eazi’s emPawa initiative.
Since launching her channel in 2015, she has gathered close to 250,000 subscribers, turning her into a video-content darling. In between content molds such as Flow, With Korty and her dating show Love or Lies exists a quirky, unvarnished appeal. The 25-year-old’s ability to capture Gen Z-millennial angst with her sometimes deadpan charm has won a multitude of fans over.Ashley Okoli — Artist
Quickly establishing herself as an undeniable style force, Ashley Okoli is one of the boldest avatars of Nigeria’s altè movement, the nonconformist youth subculture championing self expression and individuality. Her style draws from a flirty mix of goth, grunge, punk and Y2K, recalibrating these trends with her own edgy and confident spins.
Her Instagram is a crafted visual shrine, from thigh-high boots, crop tops, brazenly colored wigs, baggy and slim pants to bodysuits and to-die-for accessories. Even the treatment of the images—sometimes blurry, fisheye, faded—are stylized visual cues into her peculiarity.
It’s no surprise that she’s appeared in music videos (Cruel Santino’s "Raw Dinner) and styled Nigerian artists Ayra Starr, Obongjaya, and British rapper Little Simz.Wavy The Creator — Multifaceted creative
Wearing many creative hats, Jennifer Ejoke, aka Wavy The Creator, was a public enigma when she burst onto the scene with her debut single "H.I.G.H" in 2017. The Nigerian-American multidisciplinary artist was hard to decode because her gender presentation didn’t “fit.” But gender, as an idea, was only one facet to her she wouldn’t be pigeonholed in.
Aside from being a recording artist, fashion, film, and photography are other sides to her creative makeup. Signed to Tinie Tempah’s recording label Distributing London, Wavy’s genre-bending alternative sound saw her release her debut album, P.S. Thank You for Waiting in 2021, after a three year hiatus.Eloghosa Osunde — Artist
Osunde enters the VS World Tour creatives’ lineup with glowing awards and recognition. An alumna of the Caine Prize Workshop (2018) and the New York Film Academy (2017), this multidisciplinary creative has nurtured endeavors in writing, photography, painting, art, and fashion. She created art prints For Orange Culture’s ss20 collection at Lagos Fashion Week, and her visual art exhibited across four continents.
Her 2022 debut novel, Vagabonds, was hotly anticipated. It scooped up a finalist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction prize and Edmund White Prize for Fiction.Bubu Ogisi — Fashion designer
In a time where African fashion designers are turning to artisanal techniques as a design ethos, Lagos-based designer Bubu Ogisi appears one step ahead. Creative director of contemporary brand IAMISIGO, which she founded in 2009, Ogisi studied fashion at Ecole Superieure des Art et technique de la Mode (ESMOD) Paris, France.
With IAMISIGO, the designer has been dedicated towards preserving ancient African traditions beyond textiles and garments. By infusing mythology, history, spirituality, gender, religion, and politics, complex narratives are being birthed around what it means to dress. Of utmost importance to Ogisi is knowledge decolonization on African dress modes, working directly with African artisans and craft communities to sustain a non-Eurocentric gaze.
For the VS World Tour, she told Vogue her collection would be "fixated on the idea of Yoruba and Edo mythology. Each person is going to be a divine being, a supreme higher entity, a quote/unquote goddess.”- Top 11 African Female Models To Watch ›
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