No products in the cart.
Matheo Studio is a Kigali-based Rwandan fashion and costume-design house founded by Maurice Niyigena. Known for its cinematic presentation, sculptural silhouettes and Afrofuturist visual language, the studio uses clothing as a medium through which African histories, identities and imagined futures can be explored. Its work moves between bespoke fashion, costume, conceptual collections and performance-led presentation, giving Matheo Studio a distinctive position within Rwanda’s expanding contemporary design landscape.
Publicly available accounts present a slightly nuanced chronology for the label. A 2024 report in The New Times states that Niyigena established an emerging label called Matheo Brand in 2019. Matheo Studio’s own website, meanwhile, identifies the design house as having been founded in Kigali in 2020. Taken together, these sources suggest that the project began developing under the Matheo name in 2019 before evolving into the studio identity it uses today.
The founder’s route into design did not begin with formal garment production alone. Niyigena, who is also known professionally as Matteo, entered fashion through modelling while he was still in secondary school. That experience gave him an early understanding of how clothing, movement and image work together. He later became involved in talent management and creative direction, gradually moving from presenting other people’s clothes to developing a visual language of his own.
This background remains visible in Matheo Studio’s approach. The garments are rarely conceived as isolated objects. They are styled, photographed and presented as parts of a wider scene, often supported by performance, character and atmosphere. Rather than treating fashion simply as decoration, Niyigena approaches it as a form of communication capable of expressing cultural memory, personal emotion and social ideas.
Niyigena has spoken about the importance of discipline, self-reliance and maintaining ownership of one’s creative direction. Although he values constructive criticism, he believes that the defining ideas behind a designer’s work must remain personally grounded. He has also described fashion as a potential Rwandan export—one that can communicate African pride while remaining relevant to international audiences.
Matheo Studio describes its work as Afrofuturistic, but its interpretation of the term is broader than a fascination with technology or science-fiction imagery. The studio places African experience at the centre of its imagined futures. Historical memory, cultural symbolism and contemporary identity are brought together through dramatic proportions, layered construction and garments that frequently resemble costumes for an unwritten film.
The studio’s official portfolio includes collections and categories titled Future Warriors, The Lost Soldier and Couture. These names reveal the narrative thinking behind the clothes. Warriors, soldiers and ceremonial figures appear not simply as characters from the past but as vehicles through which strength, displacement, protection and survival can be reconsidered.
Volume plays an important part in this visual identity. Shoulders may be amplified, sleeves elongated and fabric arranged into sweeping or architectural forms. Other pieces rely on restraint, allowing a single silhouette or surface treatment to carry the narrative. The result is fashion that is often theatrical without becoming detached from the human body.
Matheo Studio’s website also emphasises craftsmanship, innovation and considered material selection. It identifies textiles sourced from established manufacturing markets including Italy, India and Turkey, reflecting an approach that combines locally developed creative direction with access to an international fabric network.
This combination is particularly relevant to the brand’s position. Matheo Studio is recognisably Rwandan in its storytelling, yet it does not confine Rwandan fashion to a fixed set of traditional visual codes. Instead, cultural reference becomes a starting point for experimentation. The work looks backwards and forwards at the same time.
One of Matheo Studio’s most significant public projects has been Rebirth: The Story of Rwanda, presented on 25 January 2025 at the Institut Français in Kigali. Organised with Kazubaa Events, the evening brought fashion into conversation with music, poetry, dance and live performance.
The programme included music by Boukuru, poetry by Delah Dube, movement by dancers from Move Afrika and saxophone performance by Jackson Keys. DJ Fiston, presenter Rocky Try and hospitality partner Bistrot de Kigali also contributed to the event. Rather than staging a conventional sequence of models and garments, the production was constructed as an immersive cultural presentation.
At its centre was a meditation on Rwanda’s experience of survival, healing and national identity. Fashion became an emotional and symbolic language through which the weight of memory could be acknowledged alongside the possibility of renewal. Africa Fashion Week London’s profile of the studio similarly describes the project as an exploration of healing, survival and identity through symbolic textiles and handcraft.
The importance of Rebirth lies in the sensitivity of its format. Rwanda’s history was not reduced to a decorative theme. Instead, garments, bodies, sound and spoken word were brought together to create a space for reflection. The project demonstrated how a fashion studio can participate in cultural remembrance while also imagining a confident contemporary future.
Matheo Studio’s work has also appeared within important Rwandan cultural platforms. In February 2024, the label was among the fashion participants presented during the inaugural Kigali Triennial, an international arts festival bringing together visual art, performance, theatre, dance and fashion. The fashion presentation was attended by Rwanda’s First Lady, Jeannette Kagame.
The studio has additionally been associated with Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Kigali and with international showcases connected to New York Fashion Week. Earlier reporting noted that international models, including Irina Breslavets-Druzhinina and Reinhardt Kenneth, had collaborated with or worn Matheo creations during fashion events in New York. These appearances helped move the studio’s imagery beyond Rwanda while retaining the cultural point of view on which the brand was built.
For a young design house, such platforms offer more than visibility. They allow the work to be encountered as performance, photographed within a professional fashion context and discussed alongside designers from other markets. Matheo Studio’s growth has therefore been shaped not only by garment production but also by its ability to build memorable visual experiences around those garments.
A major international development arrived in 2026 when Matheo Studio was selected for the Rwanda Fashion Entrepreneurship Programme. The initiative brought a delegation of Rwandan fashion entrepreneurs to London from 27 June to 5 July for business development, professional training, creative collaboration and public presentation.
The programme was developed through cooperation involving the University of Westminster, the British High Commission in Kigali, the Rwanda High Commission in the United Kingdom, Inzira Creative Partners, RwandAir, the British Council and other supporting organisations. Participants undertook a bespoke course at the Westminster School of Arts covering fashion entrepreneurship, branding, storytelling, international markets and business development.
A studio session at the university’s Harrow Campus brought Rwandan participants together with Westminster students and creative professionals. Matheo Studio worked with model Paskaline, student Malcolm Ukeje and photographer Elijah McDonnell to produce imagery intended to support the brand’s international communication.
The public centrepiece was Rwanda on Regent Street: The Future of African Fashion, held on 2 and 3 July at the University of Westminster’s Regent Street Campus. Matheo Studio was one of eight Rwandan fashion brands featured through an exhibition and window installation at The Hideaway. The event combined contemporary clothing with Rwandan dance, music and hospitality, placing fashion within a wider cultural setting.
The programme concluded with a certificate reception at Zone29. During the closing event, Niyigena and fellow designer Yves Nshimiyimana presented University of Westminster Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Bonfield with a collaboratively created “Chief Dragon Made in Rwanda” jacket. The piece offered a fitting expression of the exchange: Rwandan design used not only as clothing, but also as a gesture of connection and shared creative experience.
Matheo Studio has also received support through the British Council’s Creative DNA programme, an initiative designed to strengthen fashion businesses and connect African designers with international networks. Africa Fashion Week London identifies Matheo Studio as part of its 2026 Creative DNA cohort and describes Niyigena as a fashion and costume designer committed to using art and creativity to tell African stories and encourage positive change.
As of 23 July 2026, Matheo Studio is scheduled to appear at Africa Fashion Week London, which will take place at 8 Northumberland Avenue on 22 and 23 August 2026. The appearance represents a forthcoming stage in the studio’s international development rather than a completed event. It will place the brand before audiences in one of Europe’s most diverse showcases of African and African-inspired fashion.
Niyigena’s creative work is not limited to Matheo Studio. He also runs Bone Koboyi, an urban streetwear label that approaches African storytelling through upcycled materials, hand-painted surfaces and oversized everyday silhouettes. Coverage of the label’s Exodus collection at Nairobi Fashion Week described flared trousers, exaggerated utility pockets and repurposed denim shaped by traditional textile references.
Bone Koboyi should be understood as a separate fashion practice rather than automatically treated as a formal diffusion line of Matheo Studio. Nevertheless, the two labels reveal the breadth of Niyigena’s interests. Matheo Studio works through ceremony, costume and high-concept presentation, while Bone Koboyi brings narrative design into a more immediate streetwear vocabulary. Both demonstrate his belief that clothing can carry ideas as well as style.
Matheo Studio belongs to a generation of African fashion businesses that are defining themselves through authorship rather than external expectation. Its work does not seek to provide a single, simplified image of Rwanda or Africa. Instead, it embraces complexity: heritage can coexist with speculation, memory with futurism and local experience with international ambition.
The studio’s most persuasive strength is its understanding of fashion as a complete cultural form. A garment can become a character. A runway can become theatre. An exhibition can become a space in which history, identity and aspiration meet.
Through projects such as Rebirth, participation in the Kigali Triennial, the Rwanda Fashion Entrepreneurship Programme and its forthcoming Creative DNA presentation in London, Matheo Studio is steadily building a profile grounded in both artistic purpose and professional development. Its journey remains in progress, but its direction is already clear: to create fashion that gives African stories visual presence, emotional weight and a future-facing form.
Africa Fashion Week London. (2026). AFWL 2026 showcasing designers: Matheo Studio.
Africa Fashion Week London. (2026, May 29). Matheo Studio.
eGotickets. (2025, January 25). Rebirth: The Story of Rwanda.
FAB L’Style Africa. (2026, April 16). Kigali’s Bone Koboyi is reimagining African fashion with upcycled denim.
Kazubaa Events. (2025). Rebirth: A fashion exhibition by Matheo Studio.
Kigali Today. (2024, February 25). Madamu Jeannette Kagame yitabiriye ibirori byo kumurika imideli muri Kigali Triennial 2024.
Kigali Triennial. (2024). Artists and participating fashion brands.
Matheo Studio. (n.d.). Matheo Studio: Fashion and costume design.
Ntarindwa, F. (2024, March 14). Rwandan fashion brands that have garnered international acclaim. The New Times.
RadioTV10. (2025, July 21). From model to renowned fashion designer: Matteo’s journey through the fashion industry.
The Guardian. (2025, February 1). “People want clothes that match their values”: Sustainability takes centre stage at Nairobi Fashion Week.
The New Times. (2026, June 22). Nine designers selected for UK-backed fashion entrepreneurship programme.
University of Westminster. (2026). University of Westminster brings Rwanda’s leading fashion brands to London with vibrant exhibition.
University of Westminster. (2026). University of Westminster welcomes leading fashion entrepreneurs from Rwanda for a week of collaboration and celebration.
Stay inspired with exclusive brand features, luxury insights, and the latest in fine fashion and beauty — directly in your inbox.
