Nigerian designers put on dazzling show at Lagos Fashion and Design Week

Nov 19, 2015 Top and up-coming Nigerian designers recently showcased their cutting-edge collections at the Lagos Fashion and Design Week.

Designers wowed the audience with their elaborate array of African inspired creations and further underscored why Nigeria is fast becoming the continent’s premier fashion destinations.

Ejiro Amos Tafiri, one of the showcasing designers said:

“We now have our pieces stocked across Nigeria and some parts of — and in Canada, and UK and in America so we’ve grown; we’ve got our reach across the world especially around Africa, we’ve grown, it’s been a great journey,”

Now in its fifth year, the Lagos Fashion Week featured over 40 designers.

Ebuka Nwogu Francis, a participant at the event said:

“I think we are really going places with our fashion because if you take a look around, you will see a lot of foreign buyers here from America, London so there is obviously something about African fashion that is drawing the world to Lagos right now,”

Beyond the runway, the organizers of the event said they intend to provide a platform that will gradually reposition fashion as a useful tool for commerce and creativity in the country.

Omoyemi Akerele, founder and creative director of Lagos Fashion and Design Week said:

“We’ve been able to you know get a bit of support from Nigerian Export Promotion Council and you know their current focus now in the industry is manufacturing. How can we access manufacturing, how can we make things easier for designers, you know, combining that with capacity building and skills development, train tailors, train factory workers to you know, to get a better sense of what the assembling line is, and in return they are able to churn out or produce good, quality work that hopefully can be sold within the Nigerian Market and eventually for export so, we are on our way there,”

The general growth of the industry notwithstanding, Judith Usong, a local tailor and designer said that smaller businesses needed greater support.

“If we have a lot of money that we can do the business and we will not have problem and if bank can help us to loan us money and not the money that will cut off our heads that we will be able to pay them back when they need their money,”