Élevé Collection — The Rose Collection

A Letter from the Founder

I was eleven when I said it out loud.

Founder Adaobi Chiamaka Onyekaba, arms crossed, in the hand-beaded burgundy Chikamso Suit.

I told my mother I would make clothes. Not wear them, not collect them — make them. She nodded the way mothers nod at eleven-year-olds, and I held onto the sentence for twenty years.

I did other things first, and I did them well. I trained as a biomedical engineer. I spent five years at American Express in marketing technology and product operations, learning how systems hold under pressure, how detail compounds, and how a thing earns trust one small precision at a time. None of it was a detour. All of it is in the seams.

Élevé is made in Lagos, through a network of master tailors, beaders, and textile artisans whose names I know and whose standards I answer to. Every piece is cut to order. Nothing sits in a warehouse waiting to be discounted. When you reserve a piece, someone begins.

The Rose Collection is our first word in a longer sentence. It is about structure and softness holding the same line — a beaded shoulder that stands on its own, a pleat that moves like handwriting, a gele built like architecture. It is Nigerian craft, presented without apology and without costume.

I did not run from one life into this one. I finished what I was building, and then I came home to what I named at eleven.

One more thing: the woman wearing the collection in these photographs is me. It felt right that the first body these clothes met was the one that made them.

Welcome to Élevé.

Adaobi Chiamaka Onyekaba

Founder, Élevé Collection

No. I

Portrait of founder Adaobi Onyekaba with arms crossed, wearing the Chikamso Suit — a deep burgundy tailored jacket with ombré crystal and pearl beadwork migrating from a white satin lapel across a structured shoulder.

Look One · Atelier

Chikamso

A tailored suit in wine crepe, its white satin lapel dissolving into ombré beadwork — crystal, glass, and pearl migrating across the shoulder like evening settling in. Structured where it must be, fluid where it can afford to be.

Materials Wine crepe · white duchess satin lapel · hand-set crystal, glass & pearl ombré beadwork · structured shoulder

Made to order in Lagos.

No. II

Founder Adaobi Onyekaba smiling in the Chiamaka — a strapless black mini dress wrapped in a hand-pleated ivory silk swirl — seated on a charcoal console against a dark slatted wall.

Look Two · Contemporary

Chiamaka

A strapless black mini interrupted by a single gesture: hand-pleated ivory silk, wound and set like a stroke of paint that refused to dry flat. Architecture you can dance in.

Materials Black stretch cady · hand-pleated ivory silk sculptural appliqué

Made to order in Lagos.

No. III

Half-length portrait of founder Adaobi Onyekaba in the Mmesoma — a blue and gold Swarovski stone wax Ankara corset gown with black Chantilly lace flutter sleeves and gold hoop earrings.

Look Three · Asoebi

Mmesoma

A boned corset gown in blue and gold Swarovski stone wax Ankara, veiled in black Chantilly lace and finished with a matching wrapper draping knotted at the hip. Made for the asoebi women and vintage enthusiasts — for women who arrive as a chorus and are remembered one by one.

Materials Blue & gold Swarovski stone wax Ankara · black Chantilly lace overlay · matching wrapper draping

Made to order in Lagos.

No. IV

Half-length portrait of founder Adaobi Onyekaba in the Adaobi — a bronze sequin gown with a mother-of-pearl floral neckline and a sculpted copper metallic gele — holding a gold clutch.

Look Four · Ceremonial

Adaobi

Named for the first daughter, made for the woman being celebrated. Bronze sequins fall in vertical rain beneath a neckline garden of mother-of-pearl florals, crowned by a copper gele sculpted high enough to be seen from the back of the hall.

Materials Bronze sequin on tulle · mother-of-pearl & glass floral appliqué · copper metallic gele · beaded hem

Made to order in Lagos.

No. V

Founder Adaobi Onyekaba seated with arms outstretched in the Ifeyinwa — a black Aso-Oke asymmetric dress with raw fringed hem over a red, cobalt, and white Akwete geometric panel — against a charcoal slatted wall.

Look Five · Heritage

Ifeyinwa

An asymmetric dress in premium red Igbo origin Akwete and black Yoruba origin Aso-Oke, its raw fringed hem falling open over a woven Akwete panel in red, cobalt, blue and white pattern geometry. Two centuries of loom work resolved into one modern Yoruba and Igbo line.

Materials Premium red Igbo-origin Akwete · black Yoruba-origin Aso-Oke · woven geometric panel · raw fringed edges · contoured bodice

Made to order in Lagos.

The Atelier

Nothing here is fast, and that is the point.

Every Élevé piece is produced in Lagos through a curated network of independent artisans — master tailors who cut by hand, beaders who set crystal and pearl one stitch at a time, and textile specialists who source Ankara from the market floors and Aso-Oke and Akwete directly from the looms where they are still woven.

We work made-to-order. A reserved piece enters the atelier as a bolt of cloth and a pattern, and leaves as a garment that has passed through six or more pairs of expert hands. Lead times are honest. Waste is nearly zero. The people who make your clothes are paid as the specialists they are.

The Tailors

Structured shoulders, boned corsetry, and clean interior finishing — cut and constructed by master tailors with decades between them.

The Beaders

Ombré crystal, seed pearl, sequin rain, and floral appliqué — every element placed by hand. A single bodice can carry a full week of beadwork.

The Textiles

Ankara selected in person, Chantilly lace matched by eye, and handwoven Aso-Oke and Akwete sourced from the weaving towns that invented them.

Atelier Design Consultation

Some pieces should exist only once.

For the woman whose occasion asks for something the collection cannot answer, the atelier takes a small number of private commissions each season. A consultation begins with a conversation and a sketch; it ends with a piece made to your measurements, in your cloth, for your moment.

Request a Consultation

The Rose Collection

Reserve your piece.

Each look is cut to order in Lagos and finished by hand. When you reserve, an artisan begins. Sizing is taken to your measurements; lead times are confirmed at checkout.

Reserve on Atelier Élevé

Made to order. Made to keep.