Rachel Ojuromi had been in Paris for just a week when one of her oldest manifestations started to become real life. “I’ve always wanted to come to Paris,” the 22-year-old says. Back in 2020, she would post videos imagining herself one day living there, complete with cats and the distinct rhythm of the French capital. “And now, I’m like, ‘Hello? I’m actually in Paris?!’”
She has rightly been making the most of it. By her second night in the city, Ojuromi had gathered her friends for a 3 a.m. pilgrimage to the Eiffel Tower, calling others back home in Nigeria to share the moment in real time. And she has been back since. “I really, really love looking at the Eiffel Tower,” she says, laughing. There have been chicken and fries (“the French fries are actually really good”), long conversations with friends, and matcha runs. But nothing quite compares to what came next. Last night, Rachel Ojuromi made her runway debut at Chanel.
Long before Ojuromi was walking beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, she was making Lagos her own runway. Working closely with her best friend, stylist, and designer Debby Fasingha, Ojuromi began attracting attention online with exuberant fit-check videos. These clips placed her striking model walk and vibrant, reference-heavy looks against the rich backdrop of maximalist Nollywood aesthetics and the everyday bustle of her hometown. Viral videos showcase her striding and strutting through Lagos in fuchsia fringed skirts and animal print co-ords, louche tailored suits, luxurious layering, and corseted gowns—all while simply heading out to buy vegetables from a local market, pick up the newspaper, or balance a basket of bananas on her head.
There are joyous color combinations, textural delights, and plenty of aesthetic-hopping. It is a creative conceit that resonates because it is simple yet magnetic: if the fashion world wasn’t immediately available to her, she could build one around herself. That independent, empowering spirit is something Ojuromi has continued to uplift through her own culture platform, The Process Africa.
Lagos remains fundamental to the way Ojuromi sees herself and her work. Born and raised in Nigeria, she has frequently spoken about the city as a living element embedded in everything she makes. Even as those street-side walks began traveling far beyond the city limits, they remained unmistakably rooted in her home soil. In Paris, that distinct instinct suddenly found itself transported onto fashion’s most rarefied stage.
Ojuromi’s relationship with Chanel had already taken on a strangely prophetic quality long before her arrival in Europe. While she had been referencing past Chanel collections for quite some time, it was her viral recreation of the Métiers d’Art show that truly propelled her onto the global stage. “That video was a vehicle that led us to where we are now,” she reflects. Still, she is wary of framing any of it as an overnight success. “It’s a series of compounding events. It’s never overnight. It’s all your life you work towards something.”
Ojuromi describes herself as someone who has always been stubborn about seeing an idea through to the end. Once she decides on something, she feels a deep compulsion to make it real—even, she jokes, when that decision is as simple as cutting her hair. “Every time I ever had an idea, I always made sure to see it through,” she says. “Having an idea and executing, believing in your dreams, and believing in yourself” is, to her mind, how she ultimately ended up walking for one of the world’s most prestigious luxury houses.
The confirmation itself arrived amid an otherwise ordinary day. Ojuromi was sitting at home wearing a robe—“I love robes. I’m always wearing robes”—when her team called with the life-changing news. Her initial reaction was almost comically calm: “Oh, of course.” The true enormity of the milestone only landed later, during the first official lineup. “I started crying because I was like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait… what’s going on?’”
Making her runway debut under the tenure of creative director Matthieu Blazy is also deeply poignant for her. Ojuromi remembers listening to a podcast about Gabrielle Chanel while walking down a Lagos street last year, becoming utterly fascinated by a woman who lived fully and relentlessly pursued what she wanted, despite being told otherwise. Blazy’s design work had already resonated with her long before Chanel entered the picture. She recalls seeing his leather ready-to-wear creations at Bottega Veneta and being struck by his profound understanding of “the impact of simplicity.” When she heard he was moving to Chanel, she remembers thinking, “Wow, my two worlds are colliding.”
Ojuromi walked the Chanel Spring ready-to-wear show wearing a gray and yellow tweed shirt and matching midi skirt—a detail made even more poignant by the fact that the sunshine shade happens to be Debby Fasingha’s favorite color. “When I saw my look, I was like, ‘It’s a sign. This is a sign,’” she says. The textured tweed felt instinctively right to Ojuromi, who viewed her look as a youthful, modern interpretation of one of the fashion house’s most recognizable heritage codes. Her beauty look, featuring gleaming skin and braids pulled back neatly, was similarly unfussy. “They wanted me to look exactly like me and I really appreciate that,” she says. “I look so pretty. I feel really pretty.”
The night before the show was spent at a final refit, getting her hair styled, and then decompressing with friends over drinks before, inevitably, making yet another late-night run to the Eiffel Tower. The following morning began with matcha and, crucially, a proper night’s sleep. “No way, I have to sleep,” she remembers thinking. “I have to be well rested, ready to go.”
She practiced her walk, too. For someone whose energetic stomp through Lagos helped introduce her to millions across the internet, natural nerves still arrived when the reality of the Chanel runway beckoned. “I wanted to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I don’t stumble on my feet.” More experienced models backstage—including Bhavitha Mandava and Anok Yai—helped settle her anxiety, reminding Ojuromi to stay calm, let loose, and, most importantly, remember that she thoroughly deserved to be there. By the time she stepped onto the runway, the advice had sunk in. “I was having fun,” she says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I deserve to be here, of course!’”
Backstage after the show, the overwhelming emotions caught up with her once more. When Ojuromi started crying, the people around her closed ranks, reassuring her and helping her pull herself together before any cameras could catch her off guard. “You got this girl, don’t stress,” she remembers being told. She had a quick glam touch-up. “Of course it didn’t look like I was crying because, diva,” she jokes.
Inevitably, her thoughts return to Lagos. Ojuromi remembers sitting on her couch there, watching a live-streamed Chanel show, and wondering whether she and her friends could somehow create a high fashion world of their own. And so they did, brick by digital brick—and now, she has walked in the real thing.
Her message back home is clear and resonant: “You can dream, you can believe in something, and it can just work out,” she says. “You can dream yourself into a life that is possible even if nobody else gets it.” From the streets of Lagos to the grand glass roof of the Palais, Ojuromi stands as compelling proof of that very concept.