Chimamanda Adichie Covers Stylist Magazine‘s Latest Issue

Nigerian Author, Chimamanda Adichie, is the cover star for Stylist Magazine‘s newest issue. In an interesting chat with Susan Riley, she talks about fashion, wearing Nigerian Designs and having to justify being a feminist and loving makeup.



Your words are, of course as worn on our cover emblazoned on the T-shirt of the season. How did that come to be?

A lovely handwritten letter came from Maria Grazia [Chiuri], who is the creative director of Dior, and I was utterly charmed by it. It was long and passionate; about how she’d read everything I’d written, and about her feminism and how strongly she felt that it was important today – especially for young women – to be out there about gender equality. As much as I love fashion, my first thought [about going to the show] was, ‘Oh no… I’ll be bored’. But I’m so glad I went because it was interesting; I felt like an anthropologist. And Maria Grazia was as lovely in person as her letter, and we had the most animated conversation. Then when the models who were frighteningly skinny were walking [the catwalk], I heard my voice from my talk. I didn’t know that would happen, so I was sort of taken aback, like what the hell?! But there was something really nice about it, you know?

What do you think the benefits are of being quoted by a fashion brand, and is there a downside?

I think what Maria Grazia wanted to do was obviously symbolic, so I don’t think that putting that on a T-shirt is going to change the world. But I do think symbolic things matter and symbolic things start conversations. Actually I remember after the show standing outside and hearing a man say: “I don’t know why that should be on a T-shirt.” And I was kind of amused by that. It made me think: maybe that’s why it’s on a T-shirt. Because you could tell there was a hostility about it. Do I think there’s a downside? No. I don’t. When it comes to feminism, it has to be mainstream.

As a lover of fashion, what is your earliest memory of getting dressed up?

I was six in my mother’s room. She had a dressing table that I loved with jewellery and perfumes, and we were getting ready for church and she was doing my hair. My dress was white with blue polka dots and she’d put ribbons in my hair that also had polka dots, and my socks were pulled up almost to my knees. I remember this very clearly.

You design a lot of your own clothes but which designers do you like?

I’ve started really paying attention to Nigerian designers, because there’s so much talent in Nigeria. I just wore a young woman from Abuja whose label is called Style Temple and… I need to show you a picture of this dress I wore [scrolls through her phone to a shot of her in an amazing shirt dress] and when I sent it to my family, they were like, What the hell is going on with the sleeves!”

When you were announced as the face of Boots No7 last year, you defended that decision in several interviews. Isn’t it bizarre that a woman should have to explain and justify her relationship with make-up?

Yes, I think it’s sad. But the major reason I said yes to doing it was because of that; because I wanted to challenge those notions that I know are still very mainstream. Obviously, I knew that it would come with raised eyebrows and some criticism – but that’s the point. It’s my way of saying this is absurd: we cannot say that a woman who is interested in make-up, for example, is automatically frivolous. So I was constantly asked: isn’t it surprising that you are a feminist and you would do this, and I’m like, no! Because I’m a feminist and I wake up some mornings and just want to put the brightest colour on my lips and it makes me happy and it doesn’t make me any less intelligent or any less intellectually curious. This is a conversation that is about misogyny; the idea that the things considered traditionally feminine have to be degraded and diminished. I do sympathise with the history… I can see why women at the start of the western feminist movement decided to push back the idea that we’re not pretty; that we don’t want to perform femininity any more and that we want to disavow the whole package; I can understand that. But it’s 2017. We can now keep the baby, the bath water, the bath tub… you know, we don’t have to throw everything out.