Secondhand Clothes From a Lagos Market and One Viral Video: 22-Year-Old Nigerian Rachel Ojuromi Walked for Chanel in Paris

Rachel Ojuromi is 22 and comes from Lagos. She built her style from secondhand clothes, some of them bought at Yaba market, and showed it on Instagram, where hundreds of thousands of people follow her as @giverachelashot. At Chanel's spring-summer 2027 show, at the Grand Palais in Paris, she walked the runway as a guest of honor.

The turning point was one video. Together with stylist Debbie Fasinga and photographer Oday Ikpa, she shot a tribute to Chanel's Métiers d'Art collection - put together entirely from old, secondhand pieces. The video went viral and reached Matthieu Blazy, the house's creative director. He contacted her personally. Contracts with international agencies and a move to France followed.

On the runway she wore a yellow and gray tweed outfit, with proportions reworked by Blazy. She told Harper's Bazaar she cried after getting the confirmation and after the fitting. Blazy, for his part, introduced her to Chanel's production team as the creative mind behind the video everyone had already seen.

The story is lovely - and for Chanel, profitable. A luxury house whose tweed jackets cost thousands of euros gets a face who proved that look can be assembled from a market stall - and instead of getting defensive, it invites her onto the runway. Is that recognition of talent, or the smartest marketing the house bought this year? Most likely both.

Ojuromi seems to know that better than anyone. Through her platform The Process Africa, she helps young African talent in fashion and the visual arts - those still shooting among the stalls and waiting for someone in Paris to notice them. How many young people like that are there in our own cities, with a phone, secondhand clothes and an eye nobody has paid for?