Atelier Noir / The house
A small house with big rooms
Atelier Noir started in a single room off Sabo in 2014. Today eleven people cut, sew and fit in a converted bungalow with a courtyard and a mango tree.
Black, mint and patience.
Black because it forgives nothing and flatters everyone. Mint because it is the colour of the courtyard wall at six in the morning. Patience because couture cannot be hurried.
We make about 240 garments a year. That number will grow slowly, because every new pair of hands is trained in the studio for a year before they finish a client piece alone.
The people
Founder and head of couture
Sade Adeyemi-Cole
Trained in a Lagos bridal house before opening the studio with two machines in 2014.
Head of menswear
Kelechi Nwosu
Cuts every suit pattern by hand and keeps more than 600 on file.
Studio manager
Ifeoma Ugwu
Runs the fitting calendar, the riders and the Saturday open studio.
Master finisher
Bayo Lawal
Twenty-two years of hand hems, buttonholes and beading.
Names are invented for this demo.
Inside the studio
Twelve years
- 2014One room, two machines
The first commission is a wedding gown for a neighbour’s daughter.
- 2017Menswear opens
Kelechi joins and the agbada orders start to outnumber the gowns.
- 2020The courtyard films
With fashion weeks cancelled, we shoot our first lookbook film in the courtyard.
- 2023Solar and a second studio room
Fittings never stop for power cuts again.
- 2026Noir Mint
Our twelfth collection and the first with a full bridal line.
Your next chapter
Come and see the studio.
Saturday afternoons are open studio: see the cutting room, touch the cloth and meet the team. No booking needed.