From Delta state to London to New York, Chuks Collins’ life has been a winding pilgrimage—one that has turned survival, craftsmanship, and faith into a new era of fashion storytelling.
There are artists who create from imagination, and there are artists who create from life. Chuks Collins has always been the latter. His story begins long before New York Fashion Week, long before the Met Gala fittings of Gayle King and the global applause. It started with a boy in Nigeria, sitting beside his grandmother, learning how to sew at age 10 — a detail that would become prophetic, though he did not know it then.
At 36, Collins is multifaceted: Designer, tailor, visual storyteller, cultural bridge. However, his voice carries the softness of someone who has learned the weight of life early, survived more than most, and chosen beauty, again and again, despite it. Plus, he is witty.
Today, he calls fashion “a second home.” But home, for him, has always been plural — England, Nigeria, South Africa, England again, Lagos, and eventually New York — each leaving marks on him, each influencing the clothes he now creates.
Discover his story to the Met Gala, told between continents, illnesses, rebirths, and the apple that led him to his SS26 “Eden Re-Imagined”.
Becoming Chuks Collins: A life between continents
Collins was born in England, but Nigeria raised him. He moved between both countries as a child — a duality he would later explore in his designs. When he was old enough for secondary school, he was sent to a boarding school in Delta State. Then came a return to England, where he studied Accounting and Finance for his first degree, before enrolling at Obafemi Awolowo University and later Lagos State University.
“I was an art child for real,” he laughs now, recalling the years he spent modelling across Nigeria, even appearing in an MTN advertisement. “But I was expected to have a stable career first, like most of us.”
He tried. Perhaps harder than most.
After pursuing degrees in finance, he went to pilot school in South Africa. He returned to Lagos and worked in the banking industry. But none of it was a perfect fit. The only constant was the sewing — the muscle memory of his grandmother’s lessons returning like instinct, like destiny.
His first atelier opened in Lagos, a modest space on Adediran Ogunsanya Street. That studio, he says, “Was where I started dreaming loudly,” until life uprooted him again. He moved back to England, then returned to Nigeria for what was supposed to be a brief stop — a kidney transplant. Health complications forced him to stay longer, and for the first time in his life, he confronted stillness.
“That was when I started searching for meaning,” he says quietly. “The kind of meaning you can’t run from.”
That search led him to New York.
The Rebirth in New York: A city that wrapped its arms around him
When Collins arrived in New York in 2013, it was less about glamour and tourism but for health. He lived in an Airbnb near the hospital, travelling back and forth for treatments. Alone, healing, and unsure. Then something unexpected happened.
“It was the first time I saw people rally around me without knowing me,” he recalls.
That spirit, the way strangers can hold you in their collective warmth, reshaped him. He began volunteering with Housing Works, an organisation that uses thrift stores and auctions to support people. He started sewing for them. Purpose found him again.
He enrolled in the New York School of Arts to study fashion design. Also, he worked at Ralph Lauren — first as a visual merchandiser, then as a technical designer, then in womenswear. He built discipline and technique.
“I knew I had more to give,” he expresses, “I had a lot to show the world.”
On 18 November 2018, he registered his eponymous label. He soft-launched quietly before making his official NYFW debut in 2021.
For Collins, the “why” for everything is always more important than the “what”, and his reasons behind launching the brand were simple.
“The why is more important than the what. I am here to serve. Clothing is identity. It’s a second home.”
New York had taught him, the boroughs did. Exploring the city, he noticed that each had a different style. With their style, they wore their stories on their sleeves. He could learned a lot about their environment, their beliefs, their pain, and their joy, through observing their clothes. Collins wanted his brand to honour these parts of him.
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Eden Re-Imagined: The SS26 collection, born from an apple
Like Isaac Newton, his inspiration began with an apple started with an apple, one he was eating. “The more I ate it, the more I thought about its symbolism — its shapes, its crumbs, its history.”
Apples, he realised, were everywhere: In religion, in art, in mythology. A fruit that signified temptation, knowledge, shame, and transformation.
“There are layers to an apple,” he explains. “A reference, a warning, a beginning. I thought of Eden, of the original sin. The creation of what is the modern human. We are human — imperfect, judged, shamed — and at the core, that’s humanity.”
He wanted to translate that into clothes. “Eden is liberation,” he says. “It created human complexities. I wanted to show that.”
The collection is sculptural, textural, and deeply emotional. It is also a rebrand.
“This is what I want you to see us [Chuks Collins] as,” he says. “A new beginning, but still holding the techniques and tailoring we’re known for.”
The road to the collection wasn’t easy. Health complications returned this year. He was meant to show on the CFDA calendar but had to undergo surgery. So instead of a runway, he created a multisensory presentation, partnering with King David for a video reveal with a soundscape he describes as “peaceful, human.”
Social media carried it everywhere.
The days leading up to the collection were challenging, but exciting. The collection was changed three times. After the first version, a friend advised him to get a woman’s perspective. He did — and she helped transform the entire narrative.
He made the finale look during chemotherapy. “It wasn’t easy,” he admits. “But when the model closed the show in the teal look, I was proud. It came out architectural, ethereal — human.”
His favourite piece? The Eira set.
“Eira is Welsh for snow,” he explains. “It’s silk georgette with 3D florals. I love it so much.” Another beloved look is Suki, Look 9 — a blazer. Blazers matter deeply to him.
“They were the first things I learned to sew. By 12, I had a wardrobe full of blazers.”
The Met Gala: A bittersweet first
His Met Gala debut was triumphant, but life intervened with the celebrations. He was commissioned for five looks, but illness meant he delivered three.
The first was for Nessa Diab, created in collaboration with Edward Enninful and Moncler. It was from his 2024 collection, Nné — a tribute to mothers, biological or not.
“I have many mothers,” he says softly — women who shaped him, saved him, held him through illness.
He also dressed Gayle King for the Gala, as well as a songwriter who loves to stay behind the scenes.
“It was fun to dress an elder client,” he beams to Gayle King. “I loved it.”
What comes after Eden
Collins is entering a new era, one defined by intention, not survival. He is introducing Atelier Chuks Collins for couture, and RTW by Chuks Collins, as its name suggests, for ready-to-wear.
He calls himself multidimensional. A designer. A curator of identity. A narrator of what it means to be human.
In doing so, he revealed much of himself — the boy who learned to sew at 10, the young man who searched for meaning across countries, the artist who built a brand across survival, discipline, and grace.
This new phase, he says, is about joy.
Giving it. Sharing it. Wearing it.
For Chuks Collins, beauty has never been aesthetic alone. It has always been a calling.
