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Founded in 2010 by British-Nigerian designer Zainab Ashadu, Zashadu is a luxury accessories house built on craftsmanship and material integrity. Designed and produced in Lagos, the label creates leather goods — mini bags, clutches, totes — intended to balance beauty with function rather than chase trend. Working primarily with deadstock and surplus leathers, alongside farmed exotic skins and rough-cut precious stones set in brass, Zashadu turns overlooked material into pieces meant to be worn and kept for years, not seasons.
Ashadu's background as an architect runs through the work — her interest in the relationship between geometry and fluidity shows in the label's balance of quiet elegance and unabashed glamour. "I'm inspired mostly from Nature," she told Shop McCullen. "I make a conscious effort to pay attention to it in my surroundings, and I delight in the patterns that are present... I choose to add to the beauty that envelops me." That restraint — minimal embellishment, rich color, function-first construction — has defined the brand for more than fifteen years, produced with a team of local artisans working from Zashadu's Lagos studio.
The label has built an international following that includes Beyoncé, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ayesha Curry, and designer Lisa Folawiyo — recognition of a distinctly modern vision of luxury built from Lagos outward.
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Unisex