Two trousers came out of the debut. They share a cloth, a workshop, and a philosophy — and almost nothing else. The Labu is architectural. The Fife is air. Put them side by side and you can read the whole argument of the brand in the difference between them.
LABU — BLOCK NO. 02 · FIFE — BLOCK NO. 03
Block No. 02 — the Labu
The Labu is built from panels. Strip-woven Aso Oke runs down the leg beside solid cloth, and the seam between them is not decorative — it is structural. The stripe does not sit on the trouser. It is a part of the trouser, sewn in where the weaver's strip ends and ours begins.
That is the whole difference between heritage as print and heritage as construction. A printed panel can be placed anywhere. A woven strip has a width, decided on a loom in Òyó before we ever touched it, and the garment must be designed around that width. The cloth sets the terms. We work to them.
On the stripe
People call it gold. It is not gold — it is olive. A light olive green that reads warm in daylight and almost bronze under a bulb, which is why photographs lie about it constantly.
The cloth is not a colour. It is a weave with a colour in it.
We are precise about this because precision is the point. If we cannot describe our own cloth accurately, we have no business claiming to respect it.
Block No. 03 — the Fife
The Fife is the opposite instinct. A balloon cut — volume through the thigh, collapsing to a close finish. Where the Labu is panelled and deliberate, the Fife is a single gesture. It moves. It is the trouser you wear when you want the cloth to do the talking without spelling anything out.
FIFE — BALLOON CUT · CUT TO ORDER
Same standard, two answers
Both are cut after you order them. Both come in two cut sizes — S/M and L/XL — with your measurements taken into account if you give them to us. Both are finished by hand, by the same people, to the same line.
What differs is the question each one answers. The Labu asks how much structure a heritage textile can carry before it stops being wearable. The Fife asks how little you need to say for the cloth to be understood.
We did not want to choose. That is why there are two.
WORN IN LAGOS · MADE TO ORDER