Before the first model took the stage, Bobby Kolade stepped out in person to greet the audience and introduce them to the story behind the collection. A gesture rare in the context of modern runway shows, and one that set the intimate, dialogic tone of the presentation from the very start. Fashion critic and writer Susie Lau commented:

“Bobby Kolade coming out before his show to talk about the collection – a first! Never had a designer do an intro to the show before!”

RETURN TO SENDER 13: FREEDOM CULTURE

RTS13 continues the ongoing study into the iconography and promise of post-independence East Africa, the era BUZIGAHILL calls freedom culture. In the 1960s and 1970s, as newly independent African states began to define themselves beyond colonial formality, a new political dress code emerged. No figure embodies this shift more clearly than Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda, after whom the Kaunda suit is named. Short-sleeved, made of breathable fabric, worn without a tie, it rejected the stiff construction of imperialist tailoring, and through its lightness brought government and people closer together.

At the same time, Princess Elizabeth Bagaaya of the Tooro Kingdom in Uganda showed how elegance and fashion could serve as strategic tools of global politics. Appointed by Idi Amin in 1974 as Uganda’s first Foreign Minister, she traveled Europe and America as a member of the royal family, Uganda’s first female lawyer, an actress, and a fashion icon. She appeared as the first Black model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar UK. Both figures represent an era of hope and became icons of freedom culture, as Bobby Kolade himself recounted at the start of the show.

RTS13 reads post-colonial Africa as a design system that was never fulfilled. The Kaunda suit and Elizabeth of Tooro are African icons of freedom culture. 18 looks. One stance. The show was creative-directed by Bobby Kolade, with visual direction co-shaped by stylist Peninah Amanda and casting curated by White Casting. The soundtrack was provided by Authentically Plastic, lending the show a powerful atmosphere.

A DELIBERATE CAST

Consistent with its conceptual stance, RTS13 was cast exclusively with Black models, a deliberate creative and political choice, inseparable from what the collection expresses. In a collection that reads African freedom culture as a design system and centers the dignity of post-colonial icons, casting is not a stylistic detail but part of the statement itself. For Berlin Fashion Week, this marks, as far as is known, an unprecedented moment.

VOICES IN THE ROOM

Among the guests were actress Florence Kasumba, Fashion Council Germany chairwoman Christiane Arp, Vogue Germany editor-in-chief Kerstin Weng, presenter and cultural journalist Hadnet Tesfai, actress Sofie Eifertinger, and actor and director Lamin Leroy Gibba. International voices including Susie Lau, Edward Buchanan, Mark Holgate, and Kozue Akimoto were also present, figures whose influence reaches well beyond fashion and who help shape cultural narrative.