Meet Nigel Matambo, the designer spicing up your digital wardrobe

For almost a decade, the Dazed 100 has been spotlighting a range of different up-and-coming creatives from all around the world. From musicians and actors to designers, artists and collectives, the Dazed 100 has featured some of the biggest names in culture today. This year, in partnership with Coach, the list looks even further into the future, tapping into a new generation of trailblazers defining the new age of the internet – Generation 3.0. 

Exploring different mediums of creative technology, Nigel Matambo’s work is a perfect example of how the next generation is tapping into Web 3.0 to establish new communities and hubs of creativity. Based in Leeds, Matambo, also known as Sununguro, has previously collaborated with the late Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton, Samuel Ross and so much more, creating digital wearable pieces for clients to integrate into their virtual worlds. 

Below we spoke to Nigel about his creative journey, his inspirations and his hopes for the future. 

What is your creative practice/s? And how is it connected to a new era of the internet?

Nigel Matambo: I’m an interdisciplinary designer working in creative technology. I’m a technical artist building the augmented layer of experiences for the new era of the internet. Understanding aspects of spatial computing and engineering experiences for the new age exploring the space between physical and digital. 

Do you have multiple creative outlets? Please explain a little bit about your multi-hyphenate creativity and life

Nigel Matambo: I have several creative interests ranging from technology to fashion to music. 

Tell us about your creative journey so far? How did you get here? What difficulties did you face along the way? Have you had to reinvent yourself, if so, how?

Nigel Matambo: My creative journey has been open, I won the Universal Music Award in high school and used the money from that to buy my first MacBook. I’ve always operated between mediums. It has been less reinvention and more exploring different aspects of my creative potential. The message from Virgil was definitely a turning point, it inspired a new kind of confidence rooted in my own ideas. It came while I was working in retail on the shop floor, whilst trying to finish my degree. To build the inaugural digital wearables on Instagram for a major fashion house was not something I expected at the time. 

How do you express courage and confidence through your creative practice?

Nigel Matambo: Confidence is something that’s been emergent along the way. Courage comes through overcoming adversity and understanding the context for the journey so far. The idea that history is made in retrospect is something that’s been inspiring my confidence. There’s not a lot of context for what we do yet. 

And how do you think your creativity and working inspire confidence?

Nigel Matambo: My work finds its basis in belief whether that’s augmented reality or augmented garments through digital wearables. It comes from something more innate. In understanding that reality is a perceptual interaction that can be manipulated directly and the possibilities expand as a function of output and spontaneity. 

How do you use your creative practice to explore many expressions of yourself and identity? Do you think the internet, and web 3.0, can be used to do so in new ways?

Nigel Matambo: My creative practice is targeted at realising a new narrative for the inventors and makers.  

You're part of a brave new generation leading a new internet era. How are you breaking convention in your creativity and approach?

Nigel Matambo: I’m learning to think across different mediums and finding the synergies.  

Who lit the way for you in terms of inspiration? How do you hope others learn from

you?

Nigel Matambo: I’m inspired by people like Virgil and Samuel Ross. It is about understanding that effective kindness requires genius. 

What does Web 3.0 mean to you?

Nigel Matambo: Web 3.0 provides a format for individual sovereignty on the internet. 

How does web 3.0 have the potential to make our lives better?

Nigel Matambo: A move towards an open, trustless decentralised and permissionless internet is a move towards sovereignty of the individual. These protocols have the capacity to allow the individual control over who profits from their time and information and a level of fundamental autonomy.

Below shop Nigel Matambo's selected picks from Coach.