OYINKAN DADA
The fashion girl you didn’t see coming
At 29, Oyinkansola Dada seamlessly blends law, art, and fashion, shaping cultural landscapes between Lagos and London with her visionary spirit. There’s a phrase, “You can be everything you want to be, but not at the same time.” Oyinkansola Dada has abided by this, not intentionally. She is a lawyer, editor, curator, cultural connector, and gallerist. She splits her time between Lagos and London, never fully abandoning one for the other, and continues to shape the art, fashion, and culture landscapes in both.
ARENI ALTER EGO | MAY 03, 2026
In the late-morning glow of a quiet London day, Oyinkansola Dada sits with the kind of centred calm that betrays a year lived at full speed. She has had a fast-paced month. With the Lagos Art season in November and the fashion season in Late October, Dada has gone from sitting front row at the Jermaine Bleu show at Lagos Fashion Week to attending Art exhibits. Dada played both passive and active roles during both seasons, as she hosted a themed fashion party — Lagos is Burning — which saw fashion figures like Eniafe Momodu dressed to the nines.
Now, in this exclusive interview, she recounts her experience at the Art and Fashion Week in Lagos. She’s back in London, not for long, but for an escape. “I’ve been here for less than a few hours, so I haven’t settled in,” she says on the call. Her voice is soft, yet assured, every sentence delivered with the practised clarity of someone who has spent years litigating arguments by day. She has lived more than one life, and now she is here to discuss her next chapter in art, fashion, and the pleasure of being seen.
The bECOMING
This is the year Dada calls transformative, a word that barely captures its weight. The launch of Dada Gallery’s permanent space in Lagos — months of construction, curation, and vision distilled into a single November night — marks the moment her quiet intentions became public reality. Yet the seeds were planted years before, long before the magazine, the exhibitions, the art-world recognition, and even before the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 nod that placed her name in international circulation.
“I always knew this was coming — just not when,” she jokes. Her story begins, as many Nigerian stories do, in a large and lively family. The tenth child of nine older siblings, Dada describes her childhood as a mix of discipline and drama. She was the head girl in both primary and secondary school, a top student with a mischievous streak, the girl who excelled academically but also jumped into every performance opportunity — drama, press club, dance, modelling, anything that allowed her to shape how a story was told.
“I’ve always been very ambitious. Always involved in something, always in the centre of things. It feels like I’ve carried that into adulthood.”
Though known primarily as a gallerist, Dada is undeniably a fashion girl. Anikela once described her as the ultimate Kadiju girl, a loyal muse to the Nigerian label Kadiju. Her affinity for maximalism, sculptural tailoring, and plush textures has become part of her visual identity.
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“When I was younger, every school event was a fashion moment,” she says, laughing. “I took time to think: What am I wearing? What shoes? I was always obsessed with clothes.”
Her fashion language matured alongside her eye for art; both intuitive, both rooted in curation. “To be a good gallerist, you need an eye for beauty,” she declares.
