Bobby Kolade is part of an emerging trend of young German fashion designers, dedicated to creating and promoting sustainable ‘eco-fashion’. Born in Sudan to Nigerian parents, Kolade studied fashion design at Weißensee School of Art and worked at Balenciaga before launching his own label in 2013. Kolade’s designs are consciously ethical; he entirely abstains from using fur and leather in his creations, opting instead for natural and sustainable materials, including a fabric made from the bark of a Ugandan fig tree. Kolade also uses his fashion to make cutting-edge political statements about the nature of the fashion industry, designing a sweater featuring press photos from a collapsed textile factory in Bangladesh in order to challenge the blind consumerism often found within the industry.