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Few designers have had a start quite like Torishéju founder Torishéju Dumi. The London-based designer made her Paris Fashion Week debut in September 2023, with a show opened by Naomi Campbell and closed by Paloma Elsesser. She has been stocked in Dover Street Market since that first show season; has been inducted into the Dover Street Market Paris incubator since her second; and this year, she was among winners at the 2025 LVMH Prize. Oh, and she dressed Kendall Jenner for the Met Gala.
Now, Dumi is ready to go even further. On Wednesday, she presented her third show off-schedule at Paris fashion week, her first since winning LVMH’s €200,000 Savoir-Faire Prize. Campbell once again opened the show, which featured the designer’s signature intricate, upcycled tailoring, alongside a sharp menswear offering and new categories, such as leather, denim and knitwear.
When I sit down with Dumi a few days prior to the show, she’s honest about the fact that the past two years have created a lot of opportunity, but also a lot of pressure. “When someone gives you a space and a platform, you want to show that you have everything sorted, and you’re working towards something that’s bigger and greater and better,” she says. “So I just feel like there’s a lot of expectations. But I’m trying not to think of that, because I’ve never thought about that before — I’ve just done what I want to do.”
Building a support network
Dumi did her BA at London College of Fashion, before securing a scholarship from Lee Alexander McQueen’s Sarabande Foundation, to study the fashion design MA at Central Saint Martins. She wasn’t ready to launch a label when she graduated in 2021. But after lockdown, in 2022, Dumi began work on a collection, entitled ‘Mami Wata’, made in the evenings from deadstock fabric. When she released the images, it received a lot of attention from the press and those on social media, encouraging her to start a brand for real. “I said, ‘OK, I do want to do a collection, I do want to do a show, but I want to do it in Paris.’”
Dumi’s journey has been a whirlwind of introductions, favours and chance encounters from some of fashion’s most influential names. During her final year studying in 2021, she met stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who was judging MA collections for the Central Saint Martins Graduate Awards. Dumi didn’t win any prizes, as she hadn’t submitted what was required in the brief, but the two connected on Instagram. When Dumi was preparing to show, Karefa-Johson offered to style and help her pull it together; she also introduced Dumi to Paris PR guru Lucien Pagès, who agreed to work with her.
To access the deadstock that made up her first show collection, Dumi approached friends and contacts including designer Craig Green, who sent over “loads” of fabric (Green attended Wednesday’s show). Sarah Burton, then creative director at Alexander McQueen, sent Dumi to a North London warehouse full of deadstock fabrics and trimmings, upon recommendation from Sarabande director Trino Verkade.
Dumi, up to now, has produced all products herself, with the help of a freelance seamstress. “Everything has happened so fast, I haven’t had a moment to sit down really, and just understand what’s happening,” she says. “I’ve not really had the time to celebrate, because there’s always the next thing to prepare for.”
Expanding the Torishéju world
Not long after Dumi’s debut show in September 2023, Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market, requested a meeting with the designer. “We met in London, and I rented a studio, because back then my studio was my house,” Dumi says. “Now I know him, I realise he would have found me working at home quite sweet.”
Joffe wanted to stock her first collection in Dover Street Market Paris, and offered to show pictures to the buyers of other Dover Street locations, across Europe, Asia and the US. “He called me and said, ‘Torishèju, you won’t believe it, every store has placed an order.’ And that was without seeing the collection in-person — we didn’t even have a showroom.”
Last December, following her second show, Joffe invited Dumi to join the Dover Street Market Paris (DSMP) incubator, which supports labels including Vaquera, ERL and Matières Fécales with production, development and distribution. He also introduced her to scores of industry names, from 10 Corso Como and Fondazione Sozzani founder Carla Sozzani to photographer Paolo Roversi.
That’s why, this season, she was able to develop denim, leather and knitwear for the first time, which the designer has always wanted to do, making use of the DSMP resources. The show featured red leather skirts with exaggerated holes; slim-fit blue jeans paired with brown leather jackets; and V-neck knitwear in black and grey. “Adrian has really opened up a whole world for me, to be honest, where I’m able to translate my ideas into these other materials and continue to build the Torishéju world,” she says.
Dumi also recently moved from her home studio to a space within the Sarabande Foundation. She’s still adjusting. “I just moved in, but sometimes I like staying up until 5am and working at home,” Dumi explains. “I know it’s unhealthy, but I feel like that’s when everything comes to life.”
Torishéju shows just once a year, which the designer says is the right pace for her until she can build out the team. “I personally don’t have time to produce two collections a year. If I did that, I’d lose the magic,” she says. Dumi also keeps collections small, because she doesn’t have the capacity to create 30 or 40 looks, or lots of crazy showpieces. “It wouldn’t make sense,” she says. “I want my shows to feel like when you haven’t seen a friend for a long time. You meet up every year and you’re looking forward to it. You’re like, what have they been up to? And you can see they’ve grown.”
Growth is the intention this season. And Dumi feels that with the support of DSMP, she can now think about stockists beyond Dover Street’s seven outposts. “I definitely, definitely, definitely want to expand,” she says. “I want to show more of my vision and collaborate with other people; I want other people in different parts of the world to see what we do. Being a woman, a woman of colour, I think it can encourage and inspire people.”
Wednesday’s show was the most difficult to pull off, in many ways. The brand secured the venue, just down from the Chanel HQ on Rue Cambon, two days prior. They had less sponsorship this time round, but Dumi had only one goal. “I just want the clothes to really sing,” she says. “I just want for them to tell their story. That’s all I hope for.”
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