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Designers from across Africa gathered in Nigeria for the Spring/Summer 2024 edition of Lagos Fashion Week, the continent’s leading industry showcase. The event, which ran 25-29 October and featured close to 50 runways and presentations, has become a magnet for a new generation of creative talent as it seeks to create a Pan-African event that can crack through to the global industry agenda.
New names on the schedule included Ivorian designer Aristide Lour, founder of Kente Gentleman; Kenya’s Lilabare; and Ghanaian minimalism brand Ajabeng. Returning heavyweights including Orange Culture, Iamisigo, Emmy Kasbit, Elie Kuame, Sisano and Ugo Monye put on a spectacle, thinking outside of the traditional runway with theatrical performances and live singers. Standout moments include Kente Gentlemen’s show inspired by Robin Givens’s performance in the 1992 film Boomerang to Malian designer Awa Meité’s trunk shows hosted by Lagos’s biggest luxury retailer Alara.
“This has been the best Lagos Fashion Week that I’ve been to,” says Eniafe Momodu, British-Nigerian fashion writer and creative consultant, whose past clients include Casablanca and Grace Ladoja’s popular Nigerian streetwear festival Homecoming. “While the main runways are always amazing, it’s nice seeing more established designers breaking away and doing their own show because it gives them the opportunity to curate something that is a bit more specific to their vision, and have more creative control in terms of set designs, audience, models, lighting, etc. Those little details that really can make all the difference.”
Lagos Fashion Week has been working to rebuild in the wake of the pandemic, which muted the city’s buzzy fashion scene and forced designers to pivot to online activations. The pandemic, along with socio-economic factors including cost of living and inflation — earlier this month the Nigerian naira fell 26 per cent against the dollar to an all-time low — have hit designers hard.
“It has been hard to rebuild. The socio-economic challenges are deeply impacting the creative industries and it feels like we’re swimming against the current. It’s a miracle we were even able to pull off Lagos Fashion Week this year, thanks to partners,” says Lagos Fashion Week founder Omoyemi Akerele. “Things have changed drastically, economically, socially and politically.”
This year, Lagos Fashion Week had a record number of sponsors including main sponsor Heineken, Ivorian e-commerce platform Anka, telecom company MTN and skincare brand Bioderma. Although it’s yet to reach pre-pandemic numbers in terms of attendees and number of shows, the organisers say the event is slowly regaining momentum. Last year, some 3,900 guests attended the five-day event, while this year approximately 4,400 attended. Press, popular influencers and well-known photographers were in abundance.
Still missing are international buyers, who have never had a strong presence at Lagos Fashion Week. Instead, designers see it as an opportunity to make ties with local stores and connect with their home consumer. Retailers from major luxury retailers in Lagos were present including Alara and Temple Muse.
Since 2012, African designers have been welcomed to Lagos Fashion Week, including South Africa’s Maxhosa Africa and Imprint, as well as Ghana’s Christie Brown. However, it's becoming a priority for younger, emerging designers who believe there’s a potential to build brand awareness in one of Africa’s buzziest fashion capitals. This year, more than 10 designers held off-site shows, meaning Lagos Fashion Week did not handle the production, casting or venue. Designers who choose to showcase their collection at the main site, located at the Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos, were able to use those services.
The goal for event founder Akerele was to broaden the scope and talent visible at the event. “This refresh was deliberate. After 12 or 13 years, we can’t have the same designers showing. There’s always room for them but there’s always room to support new designers on the calendar,” she says.
Alongside Lagos Fashion Week was a Unesco conference coinciding with the launch of the recent African fashion report. To a room full of designers, government officials, industry leaders, Unesco unpacked the potential opportunities and challenges in the African market. Alongside the talk led by Akerele and Toussaint Tiendrebeogo, secretary of the Unesco 2005 convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, designers took to the stage to share their experiences of building a brand in Africa. Seven designers and business owners including Cameroonian designer Imane Ayissi, founder of his eponymous couture house, and Nelly Hagen-Deegbe, founder of Ghanaian luxury womenswear brand Duaba Serwa were part of the roundtable discussion.
The event reinforced Lagos Fashion Week’s commitment to showcasing designers from the continent, says Akerele. “Lagos Fashion Week this season was a reinforcement of our commitment to the continent. The report really underlines the dynamism of the fashion ecosystem of the continent that can be a key for driving sustainable development,” she adds. “There’s an element of synergy between [Unesco’s] goal and our goal at Style House Files and Lagos Fashion Week.”
Establishing a Pan-African fashion event
Designers from Kenya to the Ivory Coast travelled to Lagos to make their fashion week debuts and to cash in on the buzzy event and build brand awareness. The Nigerian city is home to many hailed designers including Mowalola and Kenneth Ize, and is known for being a launch pad for emerging designers such as Lagos Space Programme. Designers across Africa see an opportunity in showcasing their designs on the Lagos Fashion Week runway.
Ghana’s Ajabeng, which launched in 2020 and describes itself as an Afro-minimalism brand, saw showcasing as an opportunity to bring a new perspective to one of the biggest runways in West Africa and showcase the nuances of African culture and design. “Minimalism is a big part of African culture and the story of African fashion isn’t always maximalism,” chief executive Kwabena Kwabi Owusu-Adjei told Vogue Business backstage after the brand’s show. “For us, it’s a disservice to pigeonhole it into maximalism, so what we’re doing here is showing the other side: more muted, understated fashion that is at the same time very African. It’s about telling an African story that people aren’t aware of.” Ajabeng’s collection, designed by creative director Travis Obeng-Casper, featured a plethora of straight-cut shirts and trousers in variations of grey and brown.
For Ria Ana Sejpal, founder of sustainable Kenyan brand Lilabare, Lagos Fashion Week was always a key target and a platform to showcase identity as a Kenyan-Indian designer. “Lagos is the rite of passage,” she says. “It’s the African fashion capital. The event has the credibility, the clout, the brand name. People know about Lagos Fashion Week and pay attention to Lagos Fashion Week, so I only wanted to debut when we were ready from farm to finish.” Her collection featured beaded tops made by the Maasai community in Kenya who learnt an Indian beading technique, as well as crochet dresses and detailing.
Having shown during New York and Paris Fashion Weeks in the past, it was time to turn to the events in Africa, says Kente Gentlemen’s Aristide Lour. “It’s only right that I also do the fashion weeks that are on the continent,” he says backstage. “I know that most of our clientele are outside of the continent, unfortunately. But, I do want to present and have a space here. Lagos Fashion Week is one of the most respected platforms on the continent in terms of receiving press and buyers. For us, it was to also check this off. We did Paris and now we’ve done Lagos Fashion Week.” Lour says the goal is to tap into the Lagos fashion industry and build brand awareness on the continent, starting with Nigeria. He plans to take the collection to other African cities later this year.
Established designers create buzz
For established brands, Lagos Fashion Week is less about securing local designers and raising awareness, and rather an opportunity to pay homage to their city. It’s an opportunity to be more daring and host a celebration with fans of the brand. Nigerian designer Sisano invited live singers to open his show on Sunday evening, which was followed by a contemporary dance performance.
After a two-year hiatus, Orange Culture returned to the Lagos Fashion Week schedule. “I’m happy to be back,” founder Adebayo Oke-Lawal says backstage. “The significance of Lagos in our story and the significance of Lagos Fashion Week on our journey meant I had to come back and show.” Event founder Akerele has played a big part in helping the brand transition from a Lagos-based brand into a global brand, he explains, particularly through guidance and mentorship. “That pushed me to come back and pay homage to Lagos Fashion Week and the work that it’s doing for designers here. But also, I wanted to celebrate my people and that is what an Orange Culture show is about.”
Lagos brand Emmy Kasbit closed out the event, with designer Emmanuel Okoro drawing in large crowds who pushed the venue to max capacity. This season’s collection was inspired by Ukara cloth, a textile that belongs to a group of men in Igboland in Southeastern Nigeria and symbolises power, wealth and dignity. This collection, which featured approximately 30 looks, marked the first time the brand incorporated signature prints in its 14-year history. Okoro closed the show with governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, a move that surprised a number of attendees to see the political figure support a young designer.
Often described as the Savile Row of Nigeria, men’s tailoring giant Ugo Monye brought Friday night’s shows to a close. Showcasing during Lagos Fashion Week allows him to showcase the broad spectrum of tailoring his eponymous label offers. Although his clients are predominantly based in West Africa, there’s an opportunity to create enough noise so that the international market takes notice. His runway shows may be highly theatrical but for him, the goal is still to connect with the international market. “I’m trying to unite the West and Africa together,” Monye says. “We take pieces that are easily wearable for them and blend our African materials or our own unique designs. I look for a middle ground where both Africa and the West are able to wear our pieces,” including a mix of loose-fitting shirts and trousers, as well as male abayas.
Akerele is keen to find innovative partners to boost the export of African fashion brands. The Ivorian marketplace Anka, which is attempting to build an Amazon-like empire in Africa, used fashion week as an opportunity to meet designers and onboard them on to the Anka platform. Co-founder Moulaye Tabouré says the goal is to increase the sales of African brands in the international market. Only 5 per cent of sales on Anka happen on the continent; 95 per cent goes to the international market, with the majority of sales coming from the US market. Anka has amassed $50 million in sales to date and raised $5 million in investment in September.
Similarly to last year, New York-based retailer Moda Operandi was not physically present during the five-day event but is continuing to support designers through its annual Lagos Fashion Week capsule with designers previous seasons included heavyweights such as Orange Culture and Lisa Folawiyo. The Folklore Connect also was not present during this year’s event however, the platform says it will continue to observe the designers showcasing in order to discover new talent for their platform.
While Lagos Fashion Week focuses on invigorating the African retail industry, there’s still a need to tap international influence. While other fashion weeks outside of the big four, like Copenhagen, can fly in global buyers, Lagos Fashion Week is unable to do so. Instead, the event leans into partnerships with international retailers. Moda Operandi hosts a Lagos Fashion Week capsule on its site, while Folklore Connect uses the event to discover new talent from afar. Selfridges hosted a ‘Woven Threads’ pop-up with 17 African brands.
There’s hope for these designers big and small to gain international recognition. “African and Nigerian designers aren’t limiting themselves to one aesthetic or any one location,” says consultant Momodu. “They’re not seeing themselves as uniquely Nigerian designers; they are international designers and they’re designing for an international point of view. Ultimately, it’s not about geography or where you’re based, it’s about whether someone, somewhere in the world will identify with your pieces… we live in a globalised world and no designer should be limited to the country they were born in.”
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