Atafo and the argument for the tuxedo
Mai Atafo built a Lagos house on bespoke tailoring, bridal and a motto about rules. Now that its shop is in view, the clearest statement of that motto is a tuxedo shirt worn with a cummerbund skirt.
Start with the shirts. Atafo's womenswear lists a white satin bib tuxedo shirt over a black satin full skirt, a black satin bib tuxedo shirt worn with a cummerbund skirt, an ivory suit with black taping over a satin bib. Elsewhere in the shop there is a wing-collar pleated bib shirt with black silk trousers. It is the full grammar of formal menswear, the bib, the wing collar, the satin facing, the cummerbund, set out like type in a case, and then rearranged.
The house behind it is Atafo, founded by Mai Atafo in Lagos and run today from Lekki. Its account of itself is plain: a fashion brand that creates menswear, womenswear and bridal garments, known for bespoke tailoring and for "its stylish approach to traditional Nigerian wear". Its awards list begins in 2009, with City People's Hottest New Male Designer, and its timeline marks the launch of a bridal line in 2011. Before the label, says the house's profile of its founder, Mai Atafo had "a distinguished career spanning both corporate and creative worlds", and sought mentorship at Savile Row and at the Istituto di Moda Burgo in Milan.
Rules first
Master the rules of fashion like a lawyer and break them like an artist.
It is a useful key to the shop. The lawyerly half is everywhere. Double-breasted suits come in off-white silk, in black and white satin panels, in patterned silk jacquard. There is a three-piece tuxedo in black silk. The penny loafers are calf leather on a 20 to 25 millimetre heel, sold with a dust bag and a shoe horn. These are the rules, kept carefully.
The artist's half is the Tradxedo, which the house calls "our signature take on traditional formal wear", a garment that "merges fine tailoring with a contemporary spin on Nigerian traditional menswear". In practice it takes the evening details of a dinner suit, a velvet bib, a bishop or classic collar, velvet piping, and sets them on Nigerian formal dress. Run the same logic in the other direction and you arrive at the womenswear: the tuxedo shirt kept intact, and the cummerbund grown into a skirt.
Made to measure, in writing
The listings are unusually candid about time and money. "Made to measure and ships in two weeks," says one. "Made to measure and ships in 8 weeks," says another. Thirteen pieces are marked made to order, and several outfit listings break the price down piece by piece in the description, a Tradxedo at $280 and its trousers at $188, so you can see what the tailoring costs before you ask for it.
The shop also does something we have not seen anywhere else in this lens: it sells the runway. Forty-five listings are simply looks, numbered as in the collection, SS23 Look 8, SS24 Look 20, each with its own price. It is the most literal version of the house's stated aim of giving its audience "a first-hand view of new season designs". You see the look, and you can order the look.
As ever, we don't sell any of it. Every piece here links to atafo.africa, where the fitting, the conversation and the money stay with the house. Start with the shirts.