Last year, Autumn Adeigbo made headlines as the 36th Black woman to raise $1 million in venture capital funding. She’s the first to do so for a fashion brand—a coup for several reasons, among them fashion’s history of exclusion and its generally risky business reputation. Adeigbo is breaking conventions left and right. Her label is growing rapidly—Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus are her latest retail partners—and she’s carved out a niche in the competitive, often homogenous contemporary market. With a mix of jewel tones, African wax prints, and Victorian details, Adeigbo’s dresses and blazers are audacious yet relatable. She’s spent years refining her fits and proportions, and her baby doll minis, party tops, and puffed-sleeve blazers speak to women of varying ages and tastes.
For spring 2022, Adeigbo pivoted from the clashing patterns of last season to a different kind of OTT style: head-to-toe prints. Several looks involved a top, skirt, bag, bucket hat, and clogs in the same motif, from a vaguely Southwestern jacquard to a wallpaper floral to an ankara print aswirl with juicy red hearts. Plenty of women will stick to just one piece, maybe adding the designer’s crystal-buckle clog in black or burgundy, but others will delight in the range of matching options.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that Adeigbo seems to be resisting the urge to make “salable” basics or water down her ideas, despite her growth and expansion plans. She has an uncompromising vision, and her commitment to avoiding excess and waste means there’s little room for pieces she doesn’t believe in.
