Meet RefuSHE's Fashion Challenge 2022 Judges
You’ve met the talented designers competing in Fashion Challenge 2022: Destination Nairobi, as well as the incredible refugee women who inspired their work. Now, let us introduce you to our extraordinary panel of judges!
ADELLE ONYANGO
Adelle Onyango is a Kenyan media personality who has gained international recognition for her efforts to empower African women and youth. She has been celebrated as one of Facebook's 2019 Icons of Change, Africa Youth Awards 100 Most Influential Young Africans for 2019, OkayAfrica's 100 Extraordinary African Women for 2018, and BBC'S 100 Inspirational and Innovative Women in the World for 2017. Adelle has over 10 years of experience in the radio industry. She began as a drive show host on 1FM where she was instrumental in bringing in digital media to Kenyan radio.
Adelle is the host of Legally Clueless, a weekly podcast that documents human journeys of everyday African people. The podcast provides Africans with agency over their own stories and the portrayal of Africa. Legally Clueless has toured all around Kenya as well as Ghana, Senegal, Egypt, Accra, New York, and Chicago and was crowned the most popular Kenyan podcast in 2019 by OnePulse Research.
In 2018, Adelle founded The Adelle Onyango Initiative which exists to bridge the skills and service gap among youth and women on their pathway to empowerment. The initiative also works towards a country where survivors of sexual violence are able to access quality psycho-social support by creating SAFE 24/7 which is a quality & free psycho-social intervention for young girls & women who have survived sexual violence.
AMELIA HARDY
Amelia Hardy is the Vice President of Strategic Community Engagement & External Affairs at Best Buy where her current responsibilities include efforts to increase the engagement, representation, and retention of diverse employees at all levels of the company. She also oversees initiatives aimed at increasing the presence of products and services acquired from minority-owned businesses and partnering with other organizations to eradicate racial and social disparities in underrepresented communities. She provides insight and direction for enterprise multicultural branding and cause-marketing initiatives. Additionally, she is responsible for ESG and reputation management for her organization.
Amelia Hardy is recognized as an insightful strategic thought leader and change agent. She approaches work with an equity lens that creates a culture of inclusion and a thriving collaborative environment. She has been involved in inclusion and diversity initiatives at multiple companies and within the community, and currently sits on multiple national and community nonprofit boards including the Boys and Girls Club of the Twin Cities, MEDA, The Cowles Center, FORESIGHT, and Minnesota Community Care. Her desire is to do the work to help eradicate racial and social inequities and disparities in corporations and communities. Amelia is also an advocate for working mothers and supports initiatives that provide working parents with the resources that their families need to thrive.
BUBU OGISI
Bubu Ogisi is a textile artist and Creative Director of the contemporary women's wear brand, I A M I S I G O. She is also one of the four members of the art collective hFACTOR. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and now living between Lagos, Accra, Abidjan, and Nairobi, Bubu grew up in multiple cities and studied Fashion at the prestigious Ecole Superieure des Art et technique de la Mode (ESMOD) in Paris, France.
Her work spans around the idea of how the body exists and interacts with space by creating wearable art pieces and installation art pieces with unconventional organic materials and ancient textiles traditions from all over the African continent. Ogisi does this by adapting ancestral techniques and traditional materials in new and contemporary ways. Her work aims to decolonize and free the mind through manipulating gravity, light, color, mass, and transparency to demonstrate the infinite transformations and iterations of fiber and installation. The idea of rawness, anti-”finishing” (and therefore anti-Eurocentrism), and functionality exist as strong conceptual design threads throughout her work. By exaggerating texture, structure, and space, she is able to break and transform the rules and expectations of what textiles are into transient humanity.
I A M I S I G O is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and is sold in retail stores across Accra, Lagos, New York, London, Geneva, Johannesburg, Zurich, Abidjan, Mumbai, and Paris. The brand has showcased at the International Fashion Showcase (London Fashion Week) London 2015, Lagos Fashion and Design Week, Lagos 2011-2020, South Africa Fashion Week, Durban 2015, Afrodyssee Geneva 2016-2017, Tribal Chic Nairobi, Kenya 2017, 2019 and the Galerie Sakura Showroom Paris Fashion week, Paris 2018-2019, Bogota fashion week Bogota, Colombia 2020.
CARLEY LAKE
Carley Lake is the Co-Founder and CEO of Isthmus App, a community platform that makes it easy and fun for you and your groups to chat, hang out, and share your favorite fashion items. She’s also the founder and editor of the sustainable fashion site Thoughtful Flamingo, named one of Eluxe Magazine’s 11 eco-friendly blogs to follow.
Prior to founding Isthmus, Carley was one of the first 500 employees at Uber, co-launched Uber Eats, and led Uber’s global safety marketing and initiatives. She started her career as a digital strategist at Ogilvy & Mather for clients SC Johnson, Ford, Kimberly Clark, and Jim Beam.
Carley graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, currently resides in Amsterdam, and has been told she has the style of a grandma mixed with a middle schooler on her first day of school.
CAROL ODERO
Carol Odero started her career the day after she was sworn in as an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She is a lawyer who became a business journalist, then became a lifestyle journalist who turned into a fashion journalist and ended up as a tech journalist. As her peers began their legal careers, Carol opted for a different route and began working at Nation Media Group as an intern on the news desk. In two months, she worked her way to a byline then earned a lifestyle column almost immediately. By December 2006, Carol was a full-fledged fashion journalist writing three weekly columns and immersing herself in both the features and business journalism desk. In her career, Carol has interviewed Nobel Laureates, fashion luminaries, Kenyan politicians, and other formidable humans.
Having been typecast as a fashionista, Carol hit a ceiling and decided to take a break to reinvent herself. Somewhere during her sabbatical, she got a surprising job offer to join the tech publication CIO Africa, where she is now the Editor-in-Chief. Carol remains an award-winning fashion journalist while carrying out her duties as Editor-in-Chief at CIO Africa.
DENISE CHUMLEA
Denise Chumlea is the Vice President of Design at Kendra Scott, LLC, an American fashion and lifestyle brand which includes collections in fashion jewelry, fine jewelry, home, and beauty. Denise joined Kendra Scott in 2005 while the company was still in its infancy. As one of the first employees, she played an integral role in the brand’s growth and development, overseeing many facets of the business including sourcing, design and development, manufacturing, and merchandising. Working directly with the vendor base, Denise leads the development and manufacturing of the product and helps broker and establish a partnership with the company’s sourcing agency that continues to thrive to this day. She has previously led Kendra Scott’s merchandising efforts through assortment planning, forecasting, and buying. Denise has gained an immense understanding of business operations through her early years at KS, but her true passion has always been on the creative side, most importantly, product design.
Today, she presides over the design team leading a dedicated group of artists from concept to creation for all product categories. Denise works closely with Kendra to instill and maintain the design aesthetic and creative vision across the organization spanning the corporate office to the field teams.
KAHINDO MATEENE
Former RefuSHE Fashion Challenge designer and judge, Kahindo Mateene was born in Uganda, educated in Kenya, and has called Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Niger home. Today, she is the founder and Chief Creative Designer for KAHINDO. A modern womenswear brand designed in NYC and ethically produced in Africa, KAHINDO is noted for its colorful, original prints (created by Kahindo herself) and timeless feminine silhouettes, as well as for a dedication to empowering the female artisans who help produce the line.
Selected in 2011 to take part in Macy’s prestigious Chicago Fashion Incubator program, Kahindo was also a contestant on Project Runway season twelve in 2013. Since 2010, her collections have been showcased at multiple international fashion shows, including Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Africa and New York Fashion Week at the Harlem Fashion Row. The New York Times, Elle, Essence, and Marie Claire have all featured her work and brand.
“For me, fashion is only as beautiful as the way I treat the female artisans and workers who help me create my line," says Kahindo. "That means focusing on sustainability and ethical work environments for my global partners and using the KAHINDO brand as a vehicle to create equity and job opportunities for women. Together, we share the heart and soul of Africa with the rest of the world through fashion.”