Chess Meets Fashion Call
- Chess champion Tunde Onakoya publicly asked designers to create chess‑inspired mens' and womens' pieces on X. (x.com) - The post attracted roughly 1.9K likes, positioning the brief as an open creative commission. (x.com) - The request blends sport, cultural identity, and apparel design, inviting collaborations that could travel from niche to mainstream. (x.com)
Tunde Onakoya used X to ask designers for chess-inspired menswear and womenswear, turning a social post into an open call for fashion work. (x.com) The post drew about 1,900 likes on X, giving the request the scale of a public brief rather than a private outreach. Onakoya is a Nigerian chess master and the founder of Chess in Slums Africa. (x.com) (tundeonakoya.org) Onakoya’s public profile has expanded well beyond tournament play in the past two years. Guinness World Records lists him and Shawn Martinez as the holders of the 64-hour longest chess marathon, set in Times Square from April 17 to April 20, 2025. (guinnessworldrecords.com) His own website already places fashion next to chess in his public brand. The homepage promotes a Yoruba fila cap developed with Samuel Otigba and describes it as a modern reworking of a traditional form. (tundeonakoya.org) That makes the X request less like a one-off mood board and more like an extension of an existing mix of chess, style, and Nigerian cultural references. Chess in Slums Africa, the nonprofit he founded in 2018, says it uses chess alongside education, robotics, artificial intelligence, and digital literacy programs for children in underserved communities. (tundeonakoya.org) (chessinslumsafrica.com) The fashion angle also fits how Onakoya has framed chess in public: as something that can travel across media, events, and partnerships. Chess.com reported that his 2025 marathon was streamed globally and followed a 2024 Times Square run that raised funds for children’s education in Africa. (chess.com) A chess-inspired clothing brief gives designers a wide visual vocabulary to work with, from black-and-white board patterns to pieces, crowns, clocks, and rank-and-file geometry. Onakoya’s post asked for both menswear and womenswear, widening the field of possible collaborators. (x.com) What happens next depends on whether designers answer the call with sketches, samples, or finished looks. Onakoya has already shown that he is building a public identity where the chessboard can sit beside a runway rack. (x.com) (tundeonakoya.org)
