The education of Tunji Dada

After six and a half years of raising Bostonian eyebrows, the Nigerian-born, Roxbury-based designer is packing up his buttless pants and heading for the big time.

by Ellen Barry

A funny thing happened at New York's Fashion Week last spring. After the Herculean effort that went into showing Tunji Dada's Fall '97 collection -- the three-day insomniac work marathon, the dollhouse-sized budget of $5000, the transportation of 150 pieces of clothing and God knows how many Afro wigs from Roxbury to Manhattan by lap and Amtrak and hatchback -- not one buyer made an order.

Turns out that by Fashion Week, the big retailers have already spent their money, so designers have special shows for their buyers a month earlier. No one had told Tunji Dada. Oops.

So Dada, heralded in that week's Globe as the first Boston designer to show on the runway for New York Fashion Week in 20 years, gathered together his Fall '97 collection and made his way back to Roxbury, a trip that -- though frustrating -- represented just one more step in a long journey for a boy who used to wake up in a tiny village in Togo with snakes in his shoes. Tunji Dada has picked up a number of qualities during the 15 years since he came to America, and the greatest of them is patience.

But last spring, his patience drained away, explains Dada, whose dreadlocks are long and partially blue. The time had come to make the only conceivable move. Tunji Dada, Boston's anointed fashion wild child, is moving to New York to risk anonymity. Although he sincerely hopes to avoid it.

"I'm searching for an identity that people can relate to. Now, they say things like `faces to watch.' They say things like `upcoming.' They say things like, `He has possibilities,' " says Dada, who is 37. "I think there will be a time when they say, `Oh, that's Tunji.' "

So now, while the rest of the world is trotting out Spring '98 collections, Tunji Dada lives only for Fall '98 -- the show that will announce his presence in the fashion capital. He can't say exactly how, but he plans to make a big splash. Among the things he has learned in Boston is that obscurity is not his friend.

"Isolation is actually not, like, the best thing to do in fashion," he says, with a rueful smile.

So there it is. Tunji Dada is leaving Boston. He has 20 minutes in April to turn his name into an adjective.

On to part 2

Ellen Barry can be reached at ebarry[a]phx.com.