As a recipient of Instagram’s @design and the Brooklyn Museum’s inaugural #BlackDesignVisionaries grants, Head of State founder Taofeek Abijako is ready to ramp up.
The New York-based designer has received the $100,000 Visionary Small Business Grant. More than 500 people applied for the grants that were awarded with help from Antwaun Sargent, Ruth E. Carter, Heron Preston and others. Other winners included the graphic design studio Morcos Key, spatial designer Dominique Petit-Frère, type designer Tré Seals and art director Sablā Stays.
Abijako started Head of State in 2016 as a 17-year-old, using money that he earned by painting custom sneakers for high school classmates. He used that $3,000 to work on his first collection, which was picked up by the Japanese retailer United Arrows. “Since then, it’s been nonstop. I was able to reinvest that order to develop the brand,” Abijako said in an interview.
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Born in Nigeria, he moved to the U.S. with his family at the age of 10. With a good understanding of the post-colonial culture and environment that he grew up in, Abijako said he tries to find a middle ground between his upbringing and his associations to Western culture and explore those in each of his collections. His father, Nureni, worked as a men’s fashion designer in the ’90s, and Abijako used to tag along with him to his studio. HOS launched its first women’s collection during this fall’s New York Fashion Week. The company, which sells direct-to-consumer, offers unisex styles, too.
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The HOS team has three full-time and two part-time employees, and the grant will allow him to hire a few more freelancers or perhaps make the existing ones full-time employees. The funds will also be used to build the company’s infrastructure. Abijako is eager to work with the mentors, which he describes as “a group of amazing creatives who have been in the industry for a lot longer than I have been. Starting the brand really young, it was really hard for me to come across any mentorship. I had to get my hands dirty. This is an ideal set of resources for me to accumulate all the design knowledge from the group of mentors.”
Proceeds from HOS sales are used to fund different initiatives to help underserved communities build sustainable futures through innovation in the education, infrastructure and sanitation sectors. The grant will help Abijako to continue to support a project that he started before the pandemic to help a school in Nigeria. A 30-person team in a village there are working together to refurbish the school and provide an education to more than 500 children. The sale of approximately 1,000 HOS hoodies are needed to secure the funding of the school, he said, adding that 80 percent has already been raised.
Based in the Garment District, HOS’ most popular styles include T-shirts, hoodies and outerwear. At a friend’s suggestion, he applied for the grant a few months ago. “I’m quite selective in terms of what I want to be a part of. I feel that everything with the brand has to be intentional.” he said. “I love that the people attached to it are people that I’ve always respected…overall, I also liked what they were trying to do in terms of providing resources for Black creatives. That is something that is missing from the place where I am from. That is one of many opportunities that would go a long way, in general, to elevate Black creatives.”
Abijako was still on “this crazy high” from doing his fashion week show in September, when he received a congratulatory email about the grant. “I had applied for it months ago so I had completely forgot about it. They just randomly reached out,” he said. “That’s how I found out. I just flew out of my bed.”