Here’s a confession for you: I am envious of people who don’t have to emigrate to reach their full potential. I miss home and would like to be able to do what I love and succeed surrounded by the love of my family. The truth, however pessimistic it may sound, is that that isn’t possible right now.

How did I end up here? Why am I here in my small room in a shared house 3,000 or so miles from home, in front of my laptop telling you what worries me when I’m alone? The simple answer is I am a fashion journalist chasing her dreams, which isn’t uncomplicated.

Before I ended up here, I was in my home country, Nigeria. I had been out of school for about five years, had earned a degree in mass communications and understood that I wanted to work in fashion communication. I had such tunnel vision that given the local reality I sometimes wondered if I wasn’t doing myself a disservice being so focused on fashion. I was trying to break into an industry that had only begun to find its footing in the previous decade. There was simply no real work in the vibrant and colourful, yet fractured and sporadic fashion media in Nigeria. Too many gatekeepers, too little money. It was almost like I had chosen the wrong path.

Years spent looking for internships and work to no avail, many short courses completed; a fashion and personal style blog started: so many ways to find an entry into the industry. This all began to take their toll on my mental health. When COVID-19 hit, much like the rest of the world, we were stuck in lockdown for a few months and for the most part alone with our thoughts. I began to wonder what my life was: I was 23, had no career (at least none worth mentioning), and was tired of waiting for life to start. So, when the opportunity presented itself for me to start an MA in Fashion Communication at Central Saint Martins, I grabbed it, while being fully aware that going back to school would not be a path to guaranteed success. It was a chance worth taking and so, nine months ago, I hopped on a plane. Which brings us back here, to my tiny room in London.

I’m now a few weeks away from finishing that MA and am beginning to explore career options. Being an international student, I have been asked many times if I will be returning home to pursue a career in fashion. I don’t blame the well-meaning people who ask this; it is easy and maybe right to assume that I would want to take the knowledge I have gained back home to enrich the industry, especially as African fashion is experiencing a kind of renaissance. There is so much attention on designers from the continent right now, with Nigerian fashion leading the way. Knowledge can only go so far though and there is much to be said for the practical
benefit of any experience that I might gain from working in an established industry.

There are amazing voices back home, like NATIVE magazine, which uses music and culture to highlight African fashion, while creating a constant dialogue between the underground and the mainstream. As a lover of thrift and circular fashion, I am inspired by the magazine Display Copy, which curates edits of vintage and second-hand clothing, seeking to inspire readers to reimagine their approach to fashion, without losing creativity, connectivity, and individual expression. I am also excited by the voices of the young people at GUAP, who are constantly discovering, showcasing and nurturing emerging creative talent.

While I know what an honour it would be to join the new revolution in Nigerian fashion, I still wonder if I’m ready to spend the next decade or two of my life championing the growth of a local industry that I love so much, while earning very little. Yet I am equally aware that navigating the fashion industry in London as a black woman, more so an immigrant black woman, will not always be easy for me. I sometimes feel out of place, like I’m on the outside looking in or like my voice does not matter in certain spaces.

You’ll forgive me, I hope, for using this space to ask questions to which I don’t yet have answers. Am I ready to be a pioneer of sorts for the cause and work to build the structures that Nigerian fashion media needs? Would it not be presumptuous of me to assume that I can fix anything at all? Am I selfish for wanting to focus on my career, even starting from the ground up in a country far from home? Is there a way for me to promote stories of Nigerian fashion even if I am no longer in the thick of it, perhaps by acting as a conduit? Here comes that tunnel vision again: whatever happens, in the words of so many young Nigerians, even when the road isn’t the smoothest, we move!