On this morning, it was suspiciously straightforward. Sika Dwimfo, higher identified by his monomial Sika, is sitting in his 30-year-old store on Degnan Boulevard. He’s surrounded by African masks, Ghanaian followers, handcrafted jewellery, waist beads and burning incense. Giant items of artwork from totally different elements of the world adorn every wall. This can be a place layered with as a lot historical past, shade and distinction because the match Sika has on proper now. On any given day, curating the best look can take him as much as two hours — generally he’ll undergo 10 outfit adjustments earlier than it feels proper. However once more, at this time wasn’t a type of days. Sika awakened with a imaginative and prescient, which grew to become extra totally realized with each bit he picked up from his large assortment.
Sika has perfected the artwork of the final uniform, which embody his sun shades, hat and jewellery.
(Nailah Howze / For The Occasions)
A fast rundown is so as: First, the shorts. Purple and gold African print. Then the tee, a Lakers joint that may elevate eyebrows for anybody conscious of Sika’s notorious Clippers allegiance. (This was a Kobe dedication, so it transcended all that, he explains.) The kufi hat was bought from Taj Mahal Imports on Crenshaw, sporting a shade scheme and print that each performed off of and contrasted the shorts and shirt. The footwear: buttery ocher leather-based slip-ons from Morocco. The eyewear? All the time the Lennon-esque sun shades. (This explicit pair was bought in Chinatown for a pair bucks.) His lengthy gold necklaces, with pendants within the form of an African masks and a bicycle handmade by him, are not often taken off.
Sika has perfected the artwork of the final uniform. His sensible juxtapositions of texture, shade and materials operate as a method syllabus for individuals he encounters — each those that have come to know him and neighborhood passersby. His every day outfits are remarkably constant, however the vitality shifts relying on his temper. He’s been identified to go away the home in a single factor and are available again to alter as a result of the vibe is off.
For the 81-year-old artist, grasp jeweler, enterprise proprietor and “Godfather of Leimert Park,” dressing is the very best expression of self. “I like to decorate, I wish to look good,” says Sika. “Now that I’m older, I determine it enhances me. I’ve to placed on one thing that makes me energetic.”
Sika was born in New Orleans and raised in Chicago. His mom was a tailor who made her son customized fits, which cemented his love for bespoke items and individuality in clothes early on. He got here of age as an artist in a time and place that was coursing with jazz, artwork and poetry, and Sika was on the middle of all of it. He owned a Chicago artwork gallery in his late 20s, befriending individuals comparable to Haki R. Madhubuti and Gwendolyn Brooks. It was Madhubuti and Brooks, Sika says, who put collectively $700 for him to safe the house within the first place.
Since 1992, Sika’s has been a colourful mainstay on Degnan Boulevard — and with its founder on the middle, it’s develop into a cultural landmark.
(Nailah Howze / For The Occasions)
However the winters had been harsh. And on the time, certainly one of his play sisters was courting Fred Hampton and would often go to California to be with him throughout his time right here. (There exists an iconic image of younger Sika, small afro haloing round his head, in dialog with Hampton at certainly one of his jewellery exhibitions.) Sika would hear all about this place — the solar, the vitality.
He was trying to find a house that exhibited the liberty that already existed inside him. And he saved listening to that L.A. was the form of metropolis the place individuals would stroll round with out shirts on. Sika, all the time the free spirit, thought, “I’m into that.” He got here to L.A. in 1971, at 31 years outdated. It was his first time on an airplane.
“I had particular fits that my mom used to make for me, however once I moved out right here, I had nothing however Dr. Scholl’s sandals, shorts and T-shirts,” he says. He was staying in a five-bedroom mansion within the West Adams Historic District with roommates; his lease was $140 a month. “I acquired right here and that was it,” Sika says. There was no going again.
Since 1992, Sika’s has been a colourful mainstay on Degnan Boulevard. An individual might spend hours sifting via the racks of dashikis, beaded necklaces, Ghanaian baskets and Mali mudcloth. It began as a jewellery store, with a lot jewellery — all made by Sika — that it might fill the partitions. However now it has slightly little bit of every part, and with Sika on the middle, it’s develop into a cultural landmark.
On a sleepy Tuesday afternoon, three individuals from the neighborhood got here in inside a span of half-hour simply to say hiya. Andrea Daughtry, who runs the native nonprofit For the Fem in You, got here in to choose up a pair of earrings and chat with Sika. “For me, he’s like a grandfather I by no means had,” Daughtry says. “After I began coming to Leimert, he’s the one person that regarded out for me from Day One. He does this for lots of people. We glance as much as him for knowledge and steering and historical past — he’s the epitome of Black historical past for Leimert.”
“He’s only a totally different form of particular person,” says Milan Dwimfo of her dad’s lifestyle and magnificence.
(Nailah Howze / For The Occasions)
In the case of his appears to be like, the neighborhood expects nothing lower than a every day present. “We all know he’s not about to play with you,” Daughtry says of Sika’s model. “He’s giving vibrant colours. He loves to face out. He’s going to have a hat, footwear to match. His jewellery goes to be on, and also you’re going to see these sun shades. That’s his look.”
Sika is soft-spoken and observant. A December Capricorn, his presence is commanding, however not in an apparent or obnoxious method. His vitality speaks first, then a witty comment will take you abruptly, like when he playfully quips at his daughter Milan Dwimfo that “she’s a hater” for mentioning the wrinkles on his T-shirt. He’s the kind of one that, when he talks, individuals lean in to hear. One thing essential is about to be mentioned.
Dwimfo, who now runs Sika’s alongside together with her personal jewellery firm, Queen Midas Gold, says that her dad has all the time been distinctive — in his methods of each dressing and transferring via the world. “He’s only a totally different form of particular person,” she says. “After I was a child, my associates would all the time need to come to my home as a result of our home was totally different. I went to Crescent Heights [Boulevard Elementary School], and all the children would have Kool-Help pouches and Capri Suns. We weren’t allowed to have that. However my dad was so cute — he would make me these little avocado sandwiches, or slightly do-it-yourself salad with edible flowers, and all the time make me a contemporary smoothie or juice to take to highschool. He would choose me up in his Volkswagen van that had African print on it.”
You see images of Sika in his youth and it’s clear that he’s all the time had this sturdy sense of self. There’s a picture taken of him in 1977 at Festac, the legendary African arts and tradition competition in Nigeria, in a muscle tee, layers of knickknack and a woven beanie, with a Canon digicam in his hand. It’s dynamic and placing. Sika, then 37, glowed.
“After I was younger and would costume up, my buddies used to inform me, ‘Man, you actually look good in your garments. You have got one thing, one thing totally different.’ Now as I’ve gotten older, I really feel like that if I had listened to them, I may need been a mannequin. I really feel like a mannequin [now].”
“That’s my love,” Sika says about jewellery. “There’s one thing energetic about it, and I don’t really feel proper if I don’t have it.”
(Nailah Howze / For The Occasions)
Certainly, Sika has modeled for campaigns by Union and Mastercard alongside Dwimfo. With age, he’s additionally grown extra snug with prints and shade as a substitute of sticking to neutrals like he did in his youth.
For Sika, model has develop into an avenue to realize his most idealized self. It goes hand in hand together with his non secular follow, which he’s been perfecting his complete life. Sika’s multipronged non secular follow contains humility. Giving is one other of its pillars — he’s organizing his closet in preparation to provide away a few of his items to individuals he is aware of will respect them. He’s a longtime bike owner and is manifesting getting again on his bike once more (Sika used to experience as much as 150 miles at a time, and nonetheless nods at this life-style with the biking caps he usually wears). He prays, for issues like peace, prosperity and abundance — for others greater than for himself. He’s been largely plant-based for many years and has achieved as much as 50-day juice fasts. Dwimfo says he’s modified individuals’s lives via exhibiting them the chances of a extra vegan or vegetarian life-style. “I reside a quite simple life,” says Sika. “I simply attempt to do proper as a lot as I presumably can.”
Sika derives a sure vitality from discovering concord via clothes. Take his mixing of prints. When Sika mixes prints in a method that hits excellent, he says it nearly looks like he can “run down a flight of stairs.” The place another person may not be nuanced or courageous sufficient to place two contrasting prints collectively, Sika figures out a method. (It all the time, all the time works.) He additionally likes contrasting cultural items with streetwear. He’s presently obsessive about Converse Chuck 70s — 9 pairs and counting — that he will get from Neighbors Skate Store.
“It’s such a mixture,” says Dwimfo of her dad’s knack for mixing designs and types. “It’s such a mesh of the African stuff — simply distinctive prints in the way in which that he does it. The best way he connects all of it.”
The identical goes for his jewellery. “That’s my love,” Sika says. “There’s one thing energetic about it, and I don’t really feel proper if I don’t have it. I’ll return upstairs, and if I can’t discover it, oh, I nearly have a match.” Sika adopted jewellery as his medium when he was nonetheless in Chicago and have become well-known for his distinctive wire items. (Within the ’60s, after a Nina Simone live performance, he went backstage to provide her a pair of earrings he’d made. “We grew to become excellent associates,” he says.)
On any given day, curating the best look can take Sika as much as two hours. His neighborhood has come to anticipate nothing much less from the person they’ve dubbed the Godfather of Leimert Park.
(Nailah Howze / For The Occasions)
Sika understands one thing essential about private model that solely the really trendy have discovered: It’s a fruits of all of your identities and experiences, expressed in a method that’s referential to all of the locations you’ve been however pushes you ahead into the particular person you need to develop into. It radiates from inside.
“After I get up within the morning, it’s about how I really feel about what I need to put on — what I really feel snug sporting that day,” he says. “No matter I’ve to placed on, it must be one thing that matches. And provides me some vitality.”
