Adeju Thompson, the visionary behind the current Super Eagles jersey, sat down for an interview with punchng.com, shedding light on his journey into fashion design, his inspiration, and the public’s reception of his work. As the International Woolmark Prize winner, Thompson’s perspective provides a unique insight into the world of fashion and design. Read the full interview…
What inspired you to become a fashion designer?
It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, it’s not something that happened overnight, it’s like a life long journey or dream since childhood and me being committed to making that dream happen. And I’m very lucky to come from a family that was very supportive of what I wanted to do and made sure that they did everything within their capacity to ensure I was able to do what I wanted to do. Initially, they didn’t take me seriously, they were like ‘oh he is young, he will change his mind’ but I think as time went on, they realised that it was something that I was not changing my mind on and it was something that I was getting much more serious about and they did whatever they could to make sure that I succeeded at that.
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I think I did fashion designing because it was very important for me to speak for myself as an artist, create works that reflect where I come from. I design as a global citizen and I draw inspiration from all over the world but a difference with what I do is that my inspirations are filtered through a Nigerian lens, so that’s really what has been my standout over the years. There are series of achievet I’ve had over the years designing. I am the first African to win the International Woolmark Prize, the oldest design prize in fashion, the first winner was Yves Saint Laurent in 1952. I’m the first African to win it and that happened earlier this year, so it’s something I’m enjoying. I also showcased my works at the Paris Fashion Week. I’m the only African designer showing currently at one of the men’s calendar.
So, were you interested in sports?
Yes, I was a sportsperson, like I enjoyed sports but I wasn’t someone who did sports very much, reason being that I was bullied a lot when I was growing up. So, sports wasn’t this place that was very safe for me and I wasn’t someone that could have so much fun indulging in sports. When I was growing up, my father was someone who was into sports, he would go play football every Sunday, so I grew up following him to play football. I didn’t play, but I used to like cheering him up, and my family, especially the men in my family, are people who love football and love playing it.
However, I didn’t get the opportunity to design the jersey because of my interest in football, I got the opportunity to design the jersey because of my research around Adire (tie and dye) and how I’ve worked within that for the past few years trying to really fine-tune the craft and take it forward. And I think a lot of times we do this kind of work on the continent but I think we don’t really think about how we can move this piece of craft all over the world. So, the team, Metallic Inc in London, who were the ones who reached out to me on behalf of Nike, after they had seen my work in Adire, were quite interested in it because they wanted an Adire design for the new jersey.
How did your family react when they found out you designed the jersey?
Everyone was very happy, they were very excited about it. My father was very inspired and happy about the design. He told all his friends, he had the jersey for himself and whenever he went out and the people compliment the jersey, he was always like, ‘yeah, my son designed it’ I think he said it when the jersey first came out and people didn’t really understand it, he was telling me about how people loved it whenever he wore it abroad.
How did you feel about the comments online from those who were not fans of the jersey?
To be honest, I don’t really care, I don’t really lose sleep over what everyone thinks about my work, as long as I’ve done a good job and the people who understand it understand it. I think we have started buying into international culture and we are consistently looking to what’s happening abroad rather than looking to what’s happening within ourselves. I look at what I did and I know that in a couple of years, those jerseys will be collectibles, very valuable because people have underappreciated them. The sad thing about them is when I travel abroad I see people wearing them a lot, so it’s only those in Nigeria that do not appreciate them. These people actually look down on their culture.
I think Nigerians are very averse to change, things that are radical. I remember when it first came out and I saw the comments online, it was very funny to me. I wasn’t offended, I thought it was very funny. I was not surprised, it is just how Nigerians react to things that are new and different, I remember seeing comments and I was like ‘these people don’t ask questions’, Nigerians are just always reacting.
What inspired the jersey design?
It starts first and foremost from the concept of Adire and I don’t think a lot of people understand what Adire truly is all about. We just see it as just tie and dye but Adire is very much like a kind of cultural archive in the way we as a people have shared our stories for centuries. In Adire, each motif stands for something, it’s not about just putting this together and that together. Each motif has a significance, a constant meaning and the idea of the jersey was sort of like communicating the history of football in Nigeria, so the eagle, obviously we know the Super Eagles, it’s quite literal. There are also archival motifs in the jersey representing concepts of descent and strength, then also if you look at the back, there’s a motif, there’s a head and that was meant to communicate a motif about the late footballer (Samuel) Okwaraji, so it was really about communicating the history around football in Nigeria so each motif has a significance to it.
How many designs did you make before you arrived at this current one?
It was honestly just one. Once I did my research and I came up with the motifs that I wanted to do, I just went straight to producing it and there was a sort of large collage for the jersey and then we sent one to the Nike headquarters. This was about three years ago, so everything was done about three years ago.
Are you looking at designing more jerseys for the national teams?
If the opportunities arise, why not? But I’m not really holding my breath for that, I have a successful career and there are opportunities coming around every day. If another opportunity comes for me to design another jersey, of course I would but I’m moving on with my career and doing other things.
What’s your favourite football team by the way?
My family is very much an Arsenal family, we are Arsenal people. My dad is a die-hard Arsenal fan and he lives in the UK, so he travels to watch Arsenal matches live.
So who is your favourite Arsenal player of all time?
I just appreciate Arsenal because of my father’s love for the team. However, I personally adored Thierry Henry in those days and of course Nwankwo Kanu because he was just very amazing for the Super Eagles and Arsenal.
Who do you think is the best Nigerian player of all time?
Austin Okocha was so good they named him twice. He was a phenomenal footballer and of course, we all enjoyed his dribbles against Oliver Kahn