Top stylist Brian Babu has found himself in hot water over the outfits Team Kenya wore to the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Speaking to Barack Bukusi on the Financially Incorrect Podcast, the designer shared details about the events leading up to the outfit reveal.
"Will this top haunt me?" he asked. "First, I think that was very targeted. It was. I think it was being used as a deflection from the pressures," he said, without naming who was behind the pressure.
"I think there are a lot of factors that people don't want to talk about. Again, I get it, people are trying to get accountability, but people need to understand a lot of things happened."
He explained that a team was assembled to vet the outfits, which left him confused. "Number one, we didn't design those clothes. We were not brought in as designers. We were brought in to look at submissions that had been brought in."
He mentioned that they started this process in February. "This work should have been done last year. However, we can make it work quickly. Secondly, there were submissions, so whether good or bad, we had to work with what was presented."
When asked if the cash incentive was not attractive enough to draw Kenya's top designers, he said, "I don't think it's the cash prize. I just think that people who have dealt with the government don't want to touch it again. Me included. I couldn't do it. I don't know what you could do to convince me to touch another government project."
He confirmed that there were good designs. "No, there were good designs. I feel like the designs were there, but there were a lot of other factors. Even from what we shortlisted, there were factors with this specific uniform that were different. I have to give credit to the ministry because they involved the athletes in the selection process."
Brian knew there would be issues once the designs were unveiled to the public. "I knew it in April. I knew it was coming; I just didn't know at what magnitude. Because I could already see the delay. And our faces were already plastered on social media. So I was just like, this thing is gonna be an issue."
He also spoke about being cyberbullied. "People became personal. They left Twitter and came to Instagram, asking why I was dressing our athletes in poor outfits. It was a lot. It was very nasty."
It was alleged that each person was paid Ksh 150,000 as per a leaked message online. "What money? Oh my God, you want to tell me 30k is... And this is the thing, people want to focus on payment. So when we got there, we asked, is there remuneration for participating? If there isn't, let us know. I'm here to serve my country, and I would have done it happily. It wasn't a problem for me. They said there was remuneration, but there wasn't any communication about it. When we started getting ghosted, there wasn't proper communication."
They were summoned impromptu for a meeting, which was 100 days before the official kickoff of the Olympics.
Prior to the meeting, they were sent Ksh 30,000. "A number sent me 30k, no message, no nothing." He had a premonition that it would be chaotic. "Not all great designers submitted their designs. There were things that the ministry had listed, and if the design didn't meet those requirements, it didn't qualify. We were brought in on rules that had already been set on how to judge those pieces and make the shortlist."
There were over 100 submissions. "People are clowns. Sometimes, I feel like Kenyans need to be a bit serious. People were submitting ruracio (traditional wedding) clothes as submissions. For real, we sat through the first two sessions, and it was painful to go through the things that people had sent. It was hard."
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