Afriyie Poku isn't long for this world.
As the Ghanaian-born designer lays out the future for the March 2014 debut of his new Oberima Afriyie menswear label with business partners Tesh Gandhi and Faisal Mohammed, he wavers between the enthusiasm of a child afraid to be pinched awake and the assured certainty of a man consciously stepping into his destiny.
Poku is used to such stratospheric leaps. Just as he arrived in America an impressionable adolescent from West Africa in 2000, in 18 months he's gone from anonymity to emergent Atlanta designer on the cusp of international acclaim.
Though he's hesitant to reveal too many details from his forthcoming line, he hints at stylistic elements ranging from the 16th-century samurai of imperial Japan to the old English elegance of the antebellum South, with a modern twist.
It's part of what Poku refers to as his "artist's DNA," and from it he hopes to construct an eventual empire. "When I think about that, I get excited," he says. "The future is beautiful."
Despite earning the top prize at his first competition, Peroni Style Atlanta in 2012, and walking away with the Emerging Designer and People's Choice awards at last year's Charleston Fashion Week (CFW) in South Carolina, Poku returned home last March to little fanfare.
Sure, CNN's Don Lemon profiled him at his modest Midtown apartment, where the self-taught designer and former in-house tailor for Billy Reid's Atlanta boutique used the living room as a converted work space. But when the phone calls from New York fashion houses failed to pour in, Poku decided to sustain his own buzz.
"We just looked at each other like, you know what, let's just do it," Poku recalls.
Gandhi, who was already serving as Poku's preferred catwalk model, helped the designer hone his vision into a brand manifesto. Meanwhile, Mohammed, a photographer who'd documented Poku's dandy-inspired Peroni and CFW shows, oversaw the visuals for a lookbook featuring those sleek 2012/13 designs.
"We didn't know what the hell we were doing," Gandhi says. "But we were like, let's be productive."
By combining the omnipresence of color innate in his African heritage with a high-end European aesthetic and the classic flair of America's cinematic icons, Poku hopes to transform the idea of the modern gentleman from one-size-fits-all conventionality into something custom-tailored for businessmen and bad boys alike.
"You go through the past and build on that, but you [add] your own character to it," says Poku, who credits his mother's home-sewn traditional African garb and celebrated English/Ghanaian designer Ozwald Boateng as inspirations. "I'm giving a sense of the future through fashion."
And he's doing so with the intention of filling the void of American designers within luxury menswear. (Think less Ralph Lauren, more Alexander Wang.) That means reaching the rarified realm occupied by Europe's leading fashion houses. It's the kind of ambitious goal easier said than accomplished by someone still seeking full entry into the industry, as Kanye West would readily attest.
But Poku's portfolio speaks volumes with its Victorian tailcoats and Egyptian shendyts that brandish contemporary edginess. So much so that he and his team believe it will enable them to raise $15,000-$20,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to help subsidize the total cost of the 2014 collection due to launch at CFW 2014, when Poku returns as featured designer of the Southeast's premier fashion week.
Their grand plan will begin humbly in Spartanburg, S.C., where they recently relocated to the home of Gandhi's parents. The remote location will serve as Poku's base of operations for the 20-25 looks he'll handcraft in the three months leading up to CFW. Following that, the trio will focus on securing mentorship and monetary backing from the Council of Fashion Designers of America's annual Swarovski Award for Menswear and CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund gifted to the industry's brightest hopefuls.
"I wouldn't be here without these two gentlemen," says Poku, who already foresees the day when the likes of Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys will carry his future collections while a flagship store boasts his brand name in bold letters.
Although his outsize talent has virtually eclipsed Atlanta's middling fashion scene, he's quick to credit the city's "creative environment" with his self-predicted ascension.
"Atlanta will always be the birthplace of Oberima Afriyie," he says.
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