The city learns you before you learn it. In 2021, when Complex Department first planted its roots with a humble pop-up at Lokkohouse, nobody was talking about legacy. They were talking about survival, about texture, about making noise in a room that wasn’t built with pan-African luxury in mind. Five years later, the noise has settled into something far more deliberate: a lineage.
To mark half a decade of unyielding movement, Davidson Atanko and his crew have folded five years of sweat, flights, and friction into a single piece of silk. Enter the 30″ x 30″ anniversary scarf, a piece that is equal parts cartography, family crest, and raw love letter. Framed by a rich, signature crimson-and-gold border and stamped with “2021–2026”, the canvas centers on the emblem that started it all: a monogrammed “C” flanked by crossed Ghanaian flags, bound by a ribbon that reads “5 Years of Dedication”.
The soul of the piece, however, lies in the geography radiating from its center. It is a borderless map connecting the four urban hearts that sculpted the brand’s identity. Lagos appears in the skyline and waterway; Accra through the heavy concrete and history of the Independence Arch; Nairobi through the skyline, acacia, and a giraffe mid-stride; and Johannesburg through its cable bridge and Hillbrow Tower. Woven together by dotted flight paths, a classic compass rose, and clusters of protea in full bloom, the scarf wears its ethos explicitly on its edges with the phrases “Different Places, One Purpose. One Legacy” and, tucked near the base, “Shaped by journeys. Built on love.”
It is a record of the four cities where Complex Department made product, made relationships, and made mistakes long before it had an atelier of its own to return to. The campaign imagery extends that intimacy further. Complex Department styled it into abaya and hijab silhouettes, wrapped, knotted, and draped in the language of modest dress. It’s a quiet statement: that pan-African luxury and modest fashion aren’t parallel conversations; they’re the same one, and a house scarf can hold the weight of legacy and the ease of everyday devotion at once.
“This scarf is us, folded into fabric”, says Davidson Atanko, Founder and Creative Director of Complex Department. “Five years ago we had no atelier, no showroom, nothing but the will to build something raw, with our hands, in cities that weren’t always ours. Lagos taught us. Accra housed us. Nairobi and Johannesburg tested us. This scarf is our way of saying we remember where every thread came from”.
True to its collectible spirit, the scarf is available exclusively in-store at Complex Department’s flagship, with no online release planned, a deliberate nod to the house’s belief that some pieces are meant to be sought out, not scrolled past. The release coincides with Complex Department’s 5th anniversary showroom launch on Spintex Road, Accra, a full-circle moment for a brand that began with a pop-up at Lokkohouse in 2021 and has since built its own ecosystem, anchored today by Complex Haus in Winneba.
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