What were you thinking: The Nigerian-British stylist with a strong point of view

Ayishat Akanbi breaks down her relationship to style

This is a public post from What were you thinking, an interview series that explores the mechanics of how (and why) we get dressed. To read the last one, click here.

Ayishat Akanbi/Jonathan Daniel Pryce

“I wore this to meet my friend, Jon. He is the photographer who took these photos and one person in the fashion scene who I can have real conversations with. We met [to] have a nice walk and talk around Hackney.

I don't think I'm wearing any known designers here. I think the skirt is vintage. The trousers, actually, underneath the skirt are [from] a brand called Lazy Oaf, which has a boutique that I find fun and playful. There's an element of my style that's playful. The black half-zip underneath, I think is early Topshop or something like that. The green quilted coat is from ARKET.

Skirt and identity

I think this outfit was a case of [dressing for] practicality. It's freezing at the moment and I'm always cold, even in the supposed summer here [in London]. Recently I've also had a thing for long skirts. I've never been one to wear dresses or skirts but I've become very interested in the recent changes in our thoughts about gender, around non-binary identities and gender dysmorphia. It’s something that I can really relate to. 

When I was younger, I very intensely felt like I was someone who should have been a boy, and that feeling carried on up until, probably, my mid-20s. I’ve dedicated a chapter [in my forthcoming] book to gender identity and writing has revealed to me a lot of my own ideas about femininity, a lot of flawed ideas about femininity.

I think I held a view that was quite narrow. I thought of it more in terms of how one presents themselves, stylistically and aesthetically, rather than an energy or a perception or a way of being. I think I found [femininity] ought to be very external and that was a big flaw in my thinking. 

There was something about women's clothing, at one point, that to me felt, I don't know, maybe too dainty or patronizing to a degree. It's hard to put in words. I think I just had a childish understanding of what it means to be feminine but growing up and expanding my idea of femininity has recontextualized the skirt to me.

If I were in my late teens and I wasn't thinking about having a gender change, I might be identifying as non-binary, but because I feel that there are so many women and men like myself – who don't relate to the stereotypical understanding of what it means to be feminine or masculine, it's become important in my own life to show through my own style and just my own being that you don’t have to lock yourself into words. 

The terms male and female don't have to be imprisoning and it feels to me that if I was to identify with some alternative gendered category, then I would be reinforcing a binary where I would rather expand the perceptions of what it means to be masculine or feminine as opposed to take myself out of the categories completely.

Family, femininity and falsities

I always credit my mom for giving me some fashion sensibility. She's always been really stylish, very feminine, very colorful in the way that she presents herself. I would definitely say out of her circle of friends, she seemed to pay the most attention to what she wore.

And it’s probably my mom's idea of femininity that I held a bit too closely that made me feel as though I couldn't be that. Growing up, the things I wanted to wear were a definite source of conflict between us. I'm her only child, and so although I have brothers that I talk about [in my book], they're on my dad's side. 

But I grew up just my mother and me, as an only child. I guess because I was her daughter, she very much wanted me to be a mini-her in the way that I presented myself. Also, being Nigerian, there are quite strict gender roles that you would adhere to, and I was never that.

So I think my mom definitely, or at least her influence in being around her, gave me an eye for style and color and brands and designers. But it was potentially, I think, or not even potentially, I think it was definitely her enforcement of me to be feminine, to be a feminine woman in the way that I didn't understand or couldn't relate to that made me feel at one point, "Well, I'm some broken woman. I don't work. I'm not whatever it is my mom wants me to be, so I must be something else."

But I've always held an image of myself that other people don't see. So I remember dating someone fairly recently and she would say to me quite often, "You're one of the most feminine women I know," and I didn't really understand that. I've often thought of myself as quite masculine and assumed other people interpreted me that way also. 

I realized at that point that my concept of what it means to be feminine was too aesthetic-driven. Writing has also helped me find my own femininity. There are writers that I've admired stylistically – Susan Sontag, Fran Lebowitz – or singers like Tracy Chapman and Lauryn Hill, who have an approach to femininity that feels more aligned with mine.

Style to convey what takes longer to come out

As far as my own style, in many ways, it has served as a bit of a protection from assumptions. For so long, I didn’t quite know what my sexuality was, or at least I was not comfortable with it and used it to construct a style that was very personal to me.  When you project boldness and eccentricity, I find people give you a lot more room to just be who you are. 

When I was a young person still working in retail, I had a fairly bold style, whether people liked it or not is neither here nor there, but I was always someone who presented myself in bold ways. I remember this made people interested in me, and people would always be willing to give me an opportunity or think I had something interesting to say. That's part of the reason why I became a stylist.

I recognized early on that the change of an outfit can really change the way people view you, and that was something I wanted to give to other people. 

I do also try to portray a sense of fun [through clothes]. I'm very attached to my childhood and the things that I digested in my childhood, and I think a lot of that comes out in my style. It’s more playful than what my thoughts convey. 

The playful side of me is something that takes a long time to get to know. I think I have to be quite close to someone where I think there are a lot of people in the world who feel as though it's easier to be playful before getting serious. Maybe the serious side is a lot more vulnerable for them whereas my playful side is a lot more vulnerable to me. It's a lot more comfortable for me to express my ideas, even if they differ from the mainstream.

Rebelliousness and beauty

Fashion, in general, has become a lot more androgynous, so I don’t think there’s a rebelliousness in the way I dress today but given my cultural background, having dreads is something that in a lot of African countries, especially Nigeria, is looked down upon. It indicates a roughness or unrefined-ness, which I have found fascinating because it's my natural hair.

People would prefer me to have a weave – so a hair texture that I can't achieve naturally. Straight, European hair is considered to be more appealing than the way our hair naturally forms. So there's a rebelliousness in that sense. I try not to hold myself to European ideals of beauty because for one, I'm not that, and I'm not going to try to be something I'm not. I don't often wear makeup – every now and then if I have to do a TV performance. 

I'm not against wearing makeup, but I don't tend to wear it in my everyday life. For some people, I guess that's quite rebellious. I very much like to embody what I understand to be a natural Black beauty standard.

For a long time, I chemically straightened my hair – up until maybe my early 20s, but when I first began taking interest in race in my early 20’s, I had to look at myself and ask,  “What do I find desirable? When I achieve certain things [standards or material possessions], how do I feel inside?”

Loss and luxury

This was after my brother's death. He was murdered and that’s really what sent me on the journey to understand [my own standards]. This, tragically, is the fate of so many young Black boys in America and the UK – or at least in London. My brother was a fashion designer. Like many young people, he was into luxury brands and that's essentially what the person killed him for. To steal from him. I started thinking about our attachment to luxury, to labels, what they say about us and what we want them for.

​​It was hard not to think about how someone had taken his life merely so they could steal his designer clothes. I began to think about the importance of having such items, to the point that some are willing to commit violent and deadly acts just to obtain them. Beyond fashion, they are status symbols. For instance, I used to notice how I would wear something, and then someone would only compliment that item once they noticed it was a logo. They may have thought nothing about the garment, but they did respect the name and perhaps my ability to afford it. 

In many ways, fashion is our hello before we speak. It communicates some of our ideals and values. How we dress can determine who will want to speak with us and subsequently how they think of us. Many expensive items of clothing are not an inherent reflection of good quality, but they are a reflection of the good qualities we want others to associate with us. Not the appreciation for well-designed garments, but the obsession with brands, like many things, is how we attempt to show others that we matter. How we strive for a sense of 'somebody-ness' because many of us find it hard to feel worthy without some external signs of validation. 

My approach to fashion and self changed at that point, I wanted style, not fashion. I remember at that point looking at my hair and thinking about how many hairstyles I’d wanted through my life that weren’t easily achievable with Afro hair. 

So I asked myself, "How do I feel about my natural hair?" (This is how I frame it in the book.) I would say in Black culture, our hair is probably one of the most distinctive features of being Black, that not many other ethnic groups have. So to know that I was going out of my way to minimize one of the most distinctive features of being Black spoke a little bit too loudly to me, and that was uncomfortable, so I decided to stop [straightening my hair], to grow it out and really think about what I find beautiful and why.

I remember growing up and looking at Tracy Chapman, and finding her look really challenging. Maybe because she might have been the only woman in mainstream music at the time, at least that I had seen, who looked how she did — who was Black, with locks, who didn’t appear to wear much makeup.

Tracy Chapman at Lincoln Center’s 5th Annual Spring Gala. Photo by Mychal Watts/WireImage

She was quite masculine in her style, and this is before I knew anything of my own sexuality and I think I found it confronting. I think I found her image confronting because it [reflected] who I am.

It's who I am without frills and trills. If [back then] I was to allow myself to just be who I was naturally, I would [have seen that I] look quite similar to a woman like Tracy Chapman. 

Now I find her to be quite beautiful.” As told to Leandra Medine Cohen