“This collection is about the ways I imagined America compared to what it actually was,” reflects Creative Director Jaques Agbobly on their AW24 presentation, Bienvenue Aboard (“Welcome Aboard”). Breaking boldly into the NYFW scene, the Togo-born, Chicago-raised designer conveys this dichotomy of identities with exuberance and vitality. Drawing crowds outside of the small Chelsea venue, Agbobly’s growing fanbase is eager to catch a glimpse of the colours, forms, and dynamism of the collection inside.

“It celebrates West African flair,” Agbobly shares with Wonderland. “It’s about showing up as your best self and taking up space.” Previously a knitwear brand, Agbobly’s growing platform offered them the resources to venture into wovens. This allowed for more silhouettes and patterns, which were integral to conveying the juxtaposition between Western African diaspora and Western silhouettes with nuance.

One of the most compelling examples of this is in the print of a plaid trench, designed in partnership with fellow Chicago artist Harlan Hue and inspired by plastic, Chinatown-style “Ghana must go bags.” Known in Ghana as “Efiewura Sua Me” (“help me carry my bag”), the bags allude to Nigeria’s expulsion of Ghanan immigrants between the 1960s and 1980s, which left those affected with only hours to pack their belongings in plastic bags before fleeing. “But the print is on a trench coat,” Agbobly notes, “because I grew up watching detective shows in Togo, and that’s what I thought America was about.”

Going into the SS25 season, Agbobly will be challenging themself to experiment with more materiality. “Every collection starts with the question of what I want to improve,” the designer shares. “Until this collection, I only had access to a knitting machine, so now that I’ve introduced prints and played with proportions of colour, I’m searching for what’s next. My work is always a search – a search for identity, a search for what I have yet to find.”