Dead White Man’s Clothes have never felt so alive

Chris Akpo couldn't afford luxury clothing growing up. Now he's redefining what Ghanaian luxury fashion looks like from the inside out.

Whether it’s Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2025 show or guests at Coach’s F/W ‘26 spotted reading their book charms on the train, it’s clear the subway has become a runway. But long before luxury houses turned transit into theatre, movement was already fashion’s most honest metaphor. As transportation bridges people across borders, SUBWAE Studios positions itself as central to that station. Now operating from a newly established space in Accra that functions as a studio, office, and workshop, SUBWAE has spent the last two years refining a physical environment that reflects the fluidity at the centre of the brand’s movement. 

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Chris is at the office when we catch up, donning a SUBWAE x Free the Youth shirt made in collaboration with the collective. A detail easy to overlook at first glance, the shirt captures something essential: the evolving nature of Ghanaian fashion. Free The Youth’s vibrant and visceral language has long shaped the streetwear culture synonymous with contemporary Ghanaian style, and this collaboration signals a shift in how the country is negotiating its identity without abandoning its roots.

Throughout our call, SUBWAE’s logo stretches across the wall behind him. “It was originally called Subway,” Chris explains. A direct nod to what the designer imagined as a representation of transit itself: a network where identities intersect and transformation transpires. Now standing for Subway Storytelling Unisex Brand With Aesthetic Evolution, SUBWAE is a Ghanaian label that exists between genders and styles.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

The latest collection, Keteke, is the epitome of this. Drawing its theme from the 2017 Ghanaian film of the same name, a term that translates to “train” in Twi, the collection travels between streetwear and minimalism, arriving somewhere in between. Although it did not begin as a direct adaptation, Chris watched the film after he had already developed several looks and found its themes resonating deeply with what he was creating. 

Those same rhythms of Ghanaian transportation find their way into the collection’s accompanying short film, MOVEMENT, SOUND & STREET, where jazz improvisation echoes the cadence of a train. Flashing his AirPods, he explains that music plays an important role in his creative process, recalling memories of his father’s radio filling their home and highlife music setting the tempo of the day. That influence weaves its way into the brass, percussion, and strings of the film’s soundtrack, with artists from Ebo Taylor to Steve Lacy cited as part of the sonic landscape that inspires him. “[Sound is] spiritual,” Chris testifies, and you can hear that channeled in the music that scores his garments.

In Ghana and across many major cities, public transport reveals the social structures that shape mobility. Gender and class often dictate who moves, and how far. SUBWAE both defines and defies this reality through garments designed to move across contexts. From lightweight linen shorts to sculptural leather ponchos, the label treats clothing as a vehicle and fashion becomes a tool for mobility, allowing wearers to embody energies that take them to new heights.

Earlier this year, that sense of movement travelled beyond Ghana. The brand debuted its first showroom in Paris through a three-day installation designed to invite interaction. Guests were able to meet the designers, feel the fabrics, and engage directly with the clothing. By the second and third day, the programme expanded to include community-focused events, fostering dialogue across audiences. Admittedly nervous, Chris says he was also “energised,” seeing it as an opportunity to place SUBWAE within a broader global conversation.

Despite growing international attention, the brand remains committed to maintaining its cultural specificity. “The campaigns are rooted locally and communicate the storytelling behind the pieces through the choice of models, locations, and collaborators,” he explains, noting that most of the brand’s campaigns are produced in Ghana. 

Keteke’s short film, for example, was directed at the Limbo Museum in Accra amidst the work of New York–based artist Reginald Sylvester II. The clothing’s earth-toned palettes and sculptural silhouettes mirror the brutalist architecture and restrained colourway of the space, reinforcing the dialogue often found in SUBWAE’s designs.

That design language began at home. Eight years ago, shortly after he graduated high school, the label began as a personal pursuit. As a teenager, he was drawn to entertainment, attending events and observing how style moved through space. At home, his mother worked as a tailor. “Growing up, I couldn’t afford luxury clothing,” he recalls. Instead, he thrifted second-hand garments widely known in Ghana as obroni wawu, or “dead white man’s clothes.” Denim, T-shirts, and other pieces were brought home and resurrected by his mother, who would rework them into something new. An ethos that continues to live deeply in SUBWAE.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Across the brand’s collections, subtle disruptions reveal themselves: buttons trailing down the back of a blouse, asymmetrical skirts, and pinstripe pants composed of juxtaposed materials. “Chaos,” Chris calls it with a smile. Subtle alterations to classic silhouettes and reissued pieces refined over time contribute to an evolving brand identity. Rather than chasing constant novelty, SUBWAE builds continuity by returning to designs and reshaping them repeatedly.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Technically, the work is grounded in sustainability. Deadstock fabrics define much of SUBWAE’s material language, allowing patterns and prints that carry histories within them to share their story through the label. Each garment becomes a continuation, turning old into new in the same way his mother once did.

At SUBWAE, sustainability is not limited to the fabrics they use, but also in the transfer of knowledge. With designs that challenge conventional construction methods, Chris remains deeply hands-on, working closely with local tailors and developing pieces collaboratively rather than outsourcing them elsewhere. 

This mentorship has become the technical backbone of the brand. Through refinement and repetition, Chris helps expand the skill sets of artisans around him. In turn, those techniques continue to circulate long after a collection debuts. It’s the brand’s commitment to this approach that becomes an act of cultural preservation, strengthening local craft while empowering the next generation to inherit and expand upon it.

Like the cinematic train that inspired its latest collection, SUBWAE is ultimately about movement and transition. From its beginnings in thrifted garments and deadstock fabrics to its evolving language of sculptural tailoring, the brand is quietly reshaping contemporary Ghanaian aesthetics. Its pieces retain the silhouettes of streetwear while reinterpreting them through minimalist motifs, suggesting where Ghanaian fashion may be headed.

At a moment when Ghanaian fashion is gaining greater international visibility, SUBWAE sits among a generation of designers leading this shift. Through its collaborations, craftsmanship, and close work with local artisans, the brand is not only building its own identity but opening space for new forms of Ghanaian expression to emerge.

Written By: Michelle Nkirote

Photography: Courtesy of SUBWAE

Whether it’s Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2025 show or guests at Coach’s F/W ‘26 spotted reading their book charms on the train, it’s clear the subway has become a runway. But long before luxury houses turned transit into theatre, movement was already fashion’s most honest metaphor. As transportation bridges people across borders, SUBWAE Studios positions itself as central to that station. Now operating from a newly established space in Accra that functions as a studio, office, and workshop, SUBWAE has spent the last two years refining a physical environment that reflects the fluidity at the centre of the brand’s movement. 

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Chris is at the office when we catch up, donning a SUBWAE x Free the Youth shirt made in collaboration with the collective. A detail easy to overlook at first glance, the shirt captures something essential: the evolving nature of Ghanaian fashion. Free The Youth’s vibrant and visceral language has long shaped the streetwear culture synonymous with contemporary Ghanaian style, and this collaboration signals a shift in how the country is negotiating its identity without abandoning its roots.

Throughout our call, SUBWAE’s logo stretches across the wall behind him. “It was originally called Subway,” Chris explains. A direct nod to what the designer imagined as a representation of transit itself: a network where identities intersect and transformation transpires. Now standing for Subway Storytelling Unisex Brand With Aesthetic Evolution, SUBWAE is a Ghanaian label that exists between genders and styles.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

The latest collection, Keteke, is the epitome of this. Drawing its theme from the 2017 Ghanaian film of the same name, a term that translates to “train” in Twi, the collection travels between streetwear and minimalism, arriving somewhere in between. Although it did not begin as a direct adaptation, Chris watched the film after he had already developed several looks and found its themes resonating deeply with what he was creating. 

Those same rhythms of Ghanaian transportation find their way into the collection’s accompanying short film, MOVEMENT, SOUND & STREET, where jazz improvisation echoes the cadence of a train. Flashing his AirPods, he explains that music plays an important role in his creative process, recalling memories of his father’s radio filling their home and highlife music setting the tempo of the day. That influence weaves its way into the brass, percussion, and strings of the film’s soundtrack, with artists from Ebo Taylor to Steve Lacy cited as part of the sonic landscape that inspires him. “[Sound is] spiritual,” Chris testifies, and you can hear that channeled in the music that scores his garments.

In Ghana and across many major cities, public transport reveals the social structures that shape mobility. Gender and class often dictate who moves, and how far. SUBWAE both defines and defies this reality through garments designed to move across contexts. From lightweight linen shorts to sculptural leather ponchos, the label treats clothing as a vehicle and fashion becomes a tool for mobility, allowing wearers to embody energies that take them to new heights.

Earlier this year, that sense of movement travelled beyond Ghana. The brand debuted its first showroom in Paris through a three-day installation designed to invite interaction. Guests were able to meet the designers, feel the fabrics, and engage directly with the clothing. By the second and third day, the programme expanded to include community-focused events, fostering dialogue across audiences. Admittedly nervous, Chris says he was also “energised,” seeing it as an opportunity to place SUBWAE within a broader global conversation.

Despite growing international attention, the brand remains committed to maintaining its cultural specificity. “The campaigns are rooted locally and communicate the storytelling behind the pieces through the choice of models, locations, and collaborators,” he explains, noting that most of the brand’s campaigns are produced in Ghana. 

Keteke’s short film, for example, was directed at the Limbo Museum in Accra amidst the work of New York–based artist Reginald Sylvester II. The clothing’s earth-toned palettes and sculptural silhouettes mirror the brutalist architecture and restrained colourway of the space, reinforcing the dialogue often found in SUBWAE’s designs.

That design language began at home. Eight years ago, shortly after he graduated high school, the label began as a personal pursuit. As a teenager, he was drawn to entertainment, attending events and observing how style moved through space. At home, his mother worked as a tailor. “Growing up, I couldn’t afford luxury clothing,” he recalls. Instead, he thrifted second-hand garments widely known in Ghana as obroni wawu, or “dead white man’s clothes.” Denim, T-shirts, and other pieces were brought home and resurrected by his mother, who would rework them into something new. An ethos that continues to live deeply in SUBWAE.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Across the brand’s collections, subtle disruptions reveal themselves: buttons trailing down the back of a blouse, asymmetrical skirts, and pinstripe pants composed of juxtaposed materials. “Chaos,” Chris calls it with a smile. Subtle alterations to classic silhouettes and reissued pieces refined over time contribute to an evolving brand identity. Rather than chasing constant novelty, SUBWAE builds continuity by returning to designs and reshaping them repeatedly.

Courtesy of SUBWAE

Technically, the work is grounded in sustainability. Deadstock fabrics define much of SUBWAE’s material language, allowing patterns and prints that carry histories within them to share their story through the label. Each garment becomes a continuation, turning old into new in the same way his mother once did.

At SUBWAE, sustainability is not limited to the fabrics they use, but also in the transfer of knowledge. With designs that challenge conventional construction methods, Chris remains deeply hands-on, working closely with local tailors and developing pieces collaboratively rather than outsourcing them elsewhere. 

This mentorship has become the technical backbone of the brand. Through refinement and repetition, Chris helps expand the skill sets of artisans around him. In turn, those techniques continue to circulate long after a collection debuts. It’s the brand’s commitment to this approach that becomes an act of cultural preservation, strengthening local craft while empowering the next generation to inherit and expand upon it.

Like the cinematic train that inspired its latest collection, SUBWAE is ultimately about movement and transition. From its beginnings in thrifted garments and deadstock fabrics to its evolving language of sculptural tailoring, the brand is quietly reshaping contemporary Ghanaian aesthetics. Its pieces retain the silhouettes of streetwear while reinterpreting them through minimalist motifs, suggesting where Ghanaian fashion may be headed.

At a moment when Ghanaian fashion is gaining greater international visibility, SUBWAE sits among a generation of designers leading this shift. Through its collaborations, craftsmanship, and close work with local artisans, the brand is not only building its own identity but opening space for new forms of Ghanaian expression to emerge.

Written By: Michelle Nkirote

Photography: Courtesy of SUBWAE

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