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Profile: David ‘Avido’ Ochieng, the Kibera designer who dressed global stars and brought a fashion week home.
David Ochieng, known as Avido, was born and raised in Kibera. He is the eldest of four children raised by a single mother, and left school at 11 because the family could not pay, AFP reported in 2023.
From dance costumes to a label
He tried football and building work, then joined a dance group and started making the dancers' outfits. His brand's website says he went on to study fashion at Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts. Some reports describe him as self-taught.
His label, Lookslike Avido, makes handmade streetwear such as bomber and trucker jackets, shirts and shorts in Ankara, velvet and cotton. It works from Kibera with 12 local tailors, seven women and five men.
Who has worn it
AFP reported that Beyoncé commissioned him for Black Is King, and that Bruno Mars, Ty Dolla Sign, Chronixx and Coldplay's Chris Martin have worn his clothes. His work was shown at Berlin Fashion Week in 2019.
Giving back
The Avido Foundation takes 20% of sales. It makes school uniforms, pays some pupils' fees and teaches sewing to young mothers and deaf women.
Kibera Fashion Week
2022: the first show, on the railway line, with five creatives.
2023: at Olympic Terminus, with 15 designers picked from more than 470 applicants and about 5,000 people watching, supported by a €55,000 European Spaces of Culture grant.
2024: ten designers. The show was postponed by rain in November.
KNN could not confirm a 2025 or 2026 edition. He told that Kibera is full of style outsiders never see, and what it lacks is opportunity.
Sources: AFP via FashionNetwork,, Lookslike Avido, The Thinking Watermill, Kibera Fashion Week, European Spaces of Culture, Kibera Fashion Week 2024
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
David Ochieng, known as Avido, was born and raised in Kibera. He is the eldest of four children raised by a single mother, and left school at 11 because the family could not pay, AFP reported in 2023.
From dance costumes to a label
He tried football and building work, then joined a dance group and started making the dancers’ outfits. His brand’s website says he went on to study fashion at Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts. Some reports describe him as self-taught.
His label, Lookslike Avido, makes handmade streetwear such as bomber and trucker jackets, shirts and shorts in Ankara, velvet and cotton. It works from Kibera with 12 local tailors, seven women and five men.
Who has worn it
AFP reported that Beyoncé commissioned him for Black Is King, and that Bruno Mars, Ty Dolla Sign, Chronixx and Coldplay’s Chris Martin have worn his clothes. His work was shown at Berlin Fashion Week in 2019.
Giving back
The Avido Foundation takes 20% of sales. It makes school uniforms, pays some pupils’ fees and teaches sewing to young mothers and deaf women.
Kibera Fashion Week
2022: the first show, on the railway line, with five creatives.
2023: at Olympic Terminus, with 15 designers picked from more than 470 applicants and about 5,000 people watching, supported by a €55,000 European Spaces of Culture grant.
2024: ten designers. The show was postponed by rain in November.
KNN could not confirm a 2025 or 2026 edition. He told Kenyans.co.ke that Kibera is full of style outsiders never see, and what it lacks is opportunity.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
