LEŌN & CISCA

I remember that month my mum designed and sketched out the idea she had in mind for me like she always would with my other dresses, handpicks the fabrics, and gives Iya Kola who was a petty trader and tailor by the side of the house we lived, since she did not have a tailoring skill. She has always been a fashion enthusiast, and precise about every proportion of what she desired of a design. Since it was going to be my 8th birthday, it was an opportunity to exercise her creativity. She would sit with Iya kola to make sure she got the perfect picture of what she had in mind for me, being the only girl child. What made this outfit so special was all she said, “the if only’s ”  , also all that surrounded that season , while I wore this two piece the morning of my birthday . Those seeds were buried somewhere in my soul and marked a moment that unsettled me but tucked quietly. 

Fire never begins as a roar, it starts as a whisper, a shy spark, like the one that almost razed the entire house some years ago, from an extension box, It begins in the secret place till it becomes a blazing flame evoking a lot of emotions. Thankfully no one was hurt.

 I didn’t know this fire was going to shift the cause of all our lives, all the in between gave me a sense of direction. The fire claimed almost all the family pictures and memories that I could hold on to. And this particular picture managed to escape for some reason I don’t understand, hence pastel pink being my choice of color, for the brand. 

My Mum, who has a very powerful Imagination, She is the woman whose face holds a lifetime of silent wars, every wrinkle a road she walked alone, every crease a memory she protected with her whole chest. In my artwork, her skin peels back to reveal the younger version of herself she never got the chance to fully live… and somehow, the younger version of me that she carried inside her dreams long before I ever became.

There are secrets, visions, and seemingly impossible hopes we both once whispered, the same ones the world called madness because they could not understand the size of her longing. They saw a woman stretched thin by life and became unrecognizable, but I saw a mind rich with futures she never stopped imagining. They thought her dreams made her look crazy; I know now they made her courageous. 

And as I grew, I found myself inside those peeled layers inside her unfinished dreams, inside her quiet resilience, and choices, inside the wild visions she hid behind her eyes. But what the world dismissed became the blueprint that shaped me.

Leōn & Cisca : Leōn - Lolade Eniola Ōreoluwa Nihinlolawa & Cisca - FranCisca a brand born from a woman who dreamed fiercely even when she couldn’t chase, a daughter who inherited both the fire and the fragments that beneath the worn layers of her life was a brilliance she passed to me, not in achievements, but in the audacity to create beauty from the broken and call it legacy.

This art piece doesn’t just depict her.

It redeems her.

And it reveals me.

Since that fire, I caught a conviction on what I wanted to do, in its heat, my journey began like a small spark stitching fabrics, shaping silhouettes, learning the language of beauty with my hands. Fashion was the first fire that warmed me, teaching me how to create form from nothing, how to listen to the quiet desires hidden in cloth. But as life pressed in, the flame shifted. What began as a gentle glow became a refining fire, burning away the parts of me that were merely imitation and leaving only what was truly mine.

There were moments I felt scorched, unsure, stretched thin, pulled between who I was trained to be and who my spirit was secretly becoming. The fire of that struggle stripped me, but it never destroyed me. Instead, it revealed something deeper: a raw, unfiltered voice waiting beneath the seams.

In that heat, art found me.

Or maybe, the fire softened me enough for art to take hold.

It rose from the ashes of my old dreams not replacing fashion, but purifying it. The same hands that once shaped garments now carved emotions, shadows, and stories. The flames that once felt overwhelming became the very fire that refined my vision, melted my fear, and forged the essence of Leōn & Cisca.

Fashion taught me to create.

Fire taught me to become.

Art taught me to see.

Just like the Yoruba adage says, “Ilé ọba tó jó, ẹwà ló bù sí,” meaning when the king’s palace burns, beauty is added to it. In other words, even in the ruins of what once was, something finer, stronger, and unexpectedly beautiful is born. The fire that seemed to take everything becomes the very force that restores with grace. And so my own burning seasons are not the end, they are the clearing, the refining, the sacred rebuilding that makes the story more radiant than before. 

I have learnt in my faith journey, that I was building in my own strength stitching my life together with sheer human will. I carried the weight of every vision on my back, believing it was all up to me. But there came a point where I learned to release my grip and let God take His rightful place as the Master Builder.“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” Psalm 127:1 (KJV)

And just when I thought surrender meant slowing down… God began to show me that it was actually the beginning of everything. “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (NKJV)

Ō of Leōn became the perfect symbol: a circle for continuity, a crown for identity, a line for divine extension. A reminder that my life, my becoming is not just an O, closed and defined… but an Ō, lifted by something beyond human ability.

This is how the brand found its emblem, a truth that only fire could reveal. 

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY MUMMY ❤️(FRANCISCA).

LOVE, LEŌN.