Signature Lecture with Fashion Designer Walé Oyéjidé

6 - 8 p.m. (6 p.m. - Cocktail Reception, 7 p.m. - Lecture)BUY TICKETS Members: $35 Public: $45 Students: $25

While he describes himself as a “mere maker of clothing,” designer Walé Oyéjidé has gained significant acclaim for using fashion as a platform to celebrate marginalized populations. His work merges African aesthetics, European Renaissance art and haute couture to create wearable art that sparks conversation about cultural inclusivity.

The Signature Lecture for our current exhibition, A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE, will explore how the Philadelphia-based, Nigerian-born designer uses fashion, art and storytelling to challenge perceptions and illustrate the nuanced identities of modern global citizens.
 

“Sadly, fashion has often been used as a divider. As a sign of exclusivity, a sign of who does and does not belong to things. With that same strength, I flipped the narrative and use fashion as a way to bring us together by showing the many things we have to contribute to [the] conversation and showing how we all have places in the boardroom, places within the museum, places on the gallery wall. We can all create excellence and we all have beauty within us.”
- Walé Oyéjidé

Walé Oyéjidé, Esq. is a writer, musician, lawyer, designer, and creative director and founder of the fashion house Ikiré Jones. Mr. Oyéjidé‘s work has been exhibited at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, and the HIGH Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Fowler Museum, UCLA.

He is a public speaker having lectured about his work in Brazil, Ecuador, France, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom - his TEDGlobal talk has over 850,000 views. Mr. Oyéjidé is a co-writer of the anthology, “The Good Immigrant” (Little, Brown and Company, 2019) and a recording artist/producer that has collaborated with J-Dilla and MF Doom, among others. 

His apparel design can be seen in the Marvel Studios film BlackPanther.

Image: Ryan Lash/TED.