Dr Tolulope Omoyele
Lecturer History of Design and Material Culture (V&A/RCA)
t.omoyele@vam.ac.uk
I am a scholar-practitioner working at the intersections of fashion, decolonial theory, and the epistemic sovereignty of the Yoruba worldview. I hold a PhD from the London College of Fashion, where my research focused on Africa Fashion Week London, diaspora fashion media, and transnational identity within the Nigerian diaspora. My work explores Yoruba fashion aesthetics, focusing on indigenous knowledge systems and the ways they rethink and expand dominant frameworks in fashion and design. I am also interested in how these perspectives connect to global creative economies and questions of cultural value.
Alongside my academic work, I maintain a material practice rooted in ecological decoloniality, using structural crochet to create wearable pieces. I also develop modelling workshops as spaces for exploring the body, self-presentation, and confidence as lived and embodied practices. I am a dissertation supervisor at the V&A Research Institute and welcome research collaborations in related areas.
Selected publications
Omoyele, T. and Morsiani, B. (2025). Decolonizing Black beauty: Making a Yorùbá Queen in Ile Ife, Nigeria. Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, 16(1), 77–95.
Omoyele, T. (2023). Fashioning contemporary Yoruba cultural identities: An exploration of Africa Fashion Week Nigeria. The Routledge History of Fashion and Dress, 1800 to the Present. Edited
Olatubosun, P., Charles, E and Omoyele, T. (2021). Rethinking luxury brands and sustainable fashion business models in a risk society. Journal of Design Business & Society, 7(1), 49–81.
Current research projects
Rethinking Fashion Governance: Regberegbe and Yoruba Sartorial Systems
Yoruba Sartorial Principles: A Model for Inclusive and Adaptive Fashion.