Most independent designers present their first runway shows in college classrooms or budget-friendly gallery spaces rented by the hour. Torishéju Dumi held hers in a golden ballroom at the five-star Shangri-La Hotel at Paris Fashion Week last October. Naomi Campbell opened, Paloma Elsesser closed, and Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, one of the most in-demand fashion editors and collaborators in the industry, styled the Spring 2024 ready-to-wear collection for Dumi’s namesake brand.
One year later, Dumi still can’t quite believe her first-ever runway show wasn’t a dream. "I haven’t been able to take in how completely ludicrous and sheerly insane everything was,” she says, taking the call from a couch in her Hackney, London flat. “When I think about [the Spring 2024 show], it just seems like a made-up story or some strange event I imagined.”
