It’s no secret that Black British designers are leading the way for those looking across the African diaspora for direction. That’s needed and makes for stimulating work, but it can lack a more pointed sense of cultural history without a strong compass or firm grounding. In Tolu Coker’s Fall/Winter 2025 presentation, an exhibition-style show titled “Ori – Upon Reflection,” the designer didn’t just scratch the surface; she dug at the roots.
“And blood at the roots” is the last line in the first stanza of Abel Meeropol’s poem-turned-song “Strange Fruit,” initially sung by Billie Holliday. When I enter Coker’s show, Nina Simone’s rendition is playing, with instrumentalists present, and I feel slightly uneasy yet utterly captivated. On and on both sides of the room’s front stage stood models holding cotton stalks, viscerally evoking Black slave narratives in the American South. (One of the models was white.) All of them were styled in what I’ll classify as diasporic conservatism, this sophisticated merging of African style and spirituality, Sunday’s Best, and classic British tailoring resulting in downright impressive clothes.
It came as no surprise, though. When I spoke with Coker in her studio last week, she explained her vision for the collection with the erudition of an anthropologist. “The whole notion of the collection is about going back in order to push forward,” she says, referring to Yoruba’s movement throughout Black culture. “As people of the diaspora, we carry a lot in our bodies. We are vessels of those histories. It’s in our fabrics, our bronzes, our craft. It’s being preserved in a different form.” A form the designer is reclaiming rather than rewriting. “It’s already been written; it’s just in the old sphere,” she added.
Notably, repeated garments were styled differently on the designer’s mood board. A sculptural blouse asymmetrically extending past the waist, for example, was shown with Bermuda shorts, long and short skirts, and well-cut trousers. Several models were accessorized in a multicolored striped tie, clearly a nod to West Africa’s aesthetic jaunt. Several more wore white socks and heels. White—as in most places—has spiritual and religious meanings for Black folk in and outside the continent. It’s an experience Coker is familiar with.
“There are White Garment churches called Aladdin Churches, which you get a lot in South London, and they’re predominantly Black communities,” she tells me. “They’re very conservative Christian, and though most of them will probably reject any notion of Voodoo or ancient religion, the expression of the choir is almost like chant and transness, which was inherited.” She explains that the uniformity of the “blank white gown” in such settings allows wearers to individualize it, to bring their unique identity to it.
That’s a defining element of Black style, routinely practiced across American churches on Sundays. Indeed, Coker looked to Sunday’s Best for a modern version of cultural preservation, considering how such head-to-toe primness and expressive range is a sartorial testament to how travel shapes our history. That hit home.
