Barakat Rasaki Finds Design Possibility in Fabric and Form

Before a garment can communicate on the runway, someone has to understand what its fabric is capable of becoming. For Barakat Omolara Rasaki, working as a Production Assistant on Orange Culture’s Peacock Riot SS22 collection placed her close to this early and consequential stage of fashion development. Her contribution through fabric sourcing and sample construction connected material selection with the practical process of discovering how a design could work on the body.

Presented at Lagos Fashion Week in October 2021, Peacock Riot emerged from a particularly charged moment in Nigerian culture. Creative Director Adebayo Oke-Lawal developed the collection around ideas of isolation, protest, dignity and inclusion, drawing partly from the social atmosphere surrounding the EndSARS movement. The result was characteristically Orange Culture, expressive and gender-fluid, but also unusually concerned with the relationship between personal identity and collective experience.

That language was communicated strongly through material. Peacock Riot incorporated custom prints, denim, handwoven macramé and upcycled lace trimming, with surfaces shifting between graphic intensity and tactile detail. Colour moves confidently across the collection, while loose trousers, relaxed tailoring, layered separates and elongated forms create movement without abandoning structure.

Within this context, Rasaki’s involvement in fabric sourcing takes on greater significance. Sourcing is not simply the acquisition of material. Fabric establishes possibilities and limitations before construction begins. Weight affects movement, texture changes how colour is perceived, and the behaviour of a textile can determine whether an intended silhouette feels fluid, rigid or somewhere between the two. Supporting this process within a collection so dependent on material contrast would have required attention to how textile choices served the established creative direction.

Her work on sample construction brought that relationship closer to the body. A sample is where an idea is tested rather than merely imagined. Proportions can be questioned, construction problems become visible, and the interaction between fabric and silhouette can be properly assessed. For a production assistant, participating in this stage provides an important education in the distance between a compelling design concept and a convincing finished garment.

The runway photographs make that relationship particularly visible. Several looks depend on the tension between volume and movement, while others use texture and surface to create their strongest visual emphasis. The collection does not ask every textile to perform the same function. Some materials establish structure; others provide movement or decorative intensity. This variation gives the clothes their individual personalities while allowing them to remain part of the same visual conversation.

Rasaki’s role should not be mistaken for authorship of these decisions. The collection belonged to Orange Culture and its established creative direction. What her contribution demonstrates instead is experience within the collaborative production system required to turn that direction into physical clothing. It is precisely this supporting work, often invisible once a garment reaches the runway, that determines whether an ambitious idea can survive production.

For Barakat Omolara Rasaki, Peacock Riot represents more than proximity to an established Nigerian label. It provided practical experience in understanding fashion from the material upwards. Fabric sourcing taught the importance of choosing what a garment begins with, while sample construction exposed the testing and adjustment required before an idea can become resolved clothing. Together, these responsibilities reveal an emerging fashion professional developing an essential instinct: understanding that the success of a garment begins long before its final appearance on the runway.