What is coming
On 11 November, Banke Kuku presents Earth & Sky, her Spring/Summer 2027 collection, at Oasis, The Glass Marquee on Victoria Island. It is her first show at home since The Invitation took Lagos to the Milano Fashion Week calendar in September, and EscapeMag is an official media partner.
The idea is the water cycle. The sky gives rain, the rain feeds the earth, and the earth gives back. Banke treats it as a circle of life, and she has built the collection on seven prints in three families: Sky, Earth and Rain.
Where it started
Banke never starts with a sketch. "I start with a feeling, and for Earth & Sky, that feeling was abundance. This year I became a mother for the first time, and everywhere I looked, nature was reflecting that same fullness back at me."
Read that again and the whole collection makes sense. A new mother looks at the sky, the rain and the ground, and she sees what she is living through herself. Something is being given, and something is growing.
What you will see
The hero print is Bougainvillea Sky, with watercolour bougainvillea, bees, butterflies and birds on a turquoise ground. Dove Sky and Daybreak Sky sit beside it. The Earth prints, Yellow Trumpet and Flower Bud, come from flowering plants like Costus spectabilis. The Rain family pairs Raindrop, a glossy print that looks almost like a photograph, with the Kuku monogram in fresh colours.
On the kaftans and kimono robes, the Sky prints are finished with clouds and raindrops embroidered by hand. That glossy raindrop sitting next to all that soft watercolour is the detail I am most curious to see in person.
My take
Fashion runs on its own cycle, and it is a wasteful one. New season, new clothes, and last season goes out. Earth & Sky carries a Spring/Summer label, but Banke Kuku treats its pieces as seasonless, so they stay in the collection long after the season ends. Offcuts get used instead of thrown away, the prints are digital so they use less heat and water, and the brand keeps cutting back on man-made fabrics. Away from the clothes, it works with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation on the Re-Green Movement.
So the message on the clothes and the way they are made are the same thing. What you take, you give back. Plenty of brands talk about sustainability. Banke built a whole collection around it, and the feeling that started it was becoming a mother.
When I wrote about The Invitation, I said the invitation was for us too. This time she is bringing the show home.
"This is my most personal collection," she says.
Earth & Sky shows on 11 November, and the pieces will be at the Banke Kuku flagship on Victoria Island and with global stockists from December 2026.