Brands We Love: Highlights from Lagos Fashion Week 2024

Discover the vibrant world of Lagos Fashion Week and experience the essence of African Fashion. With 60 emerging and top African designers showcasing their innovative designs and commitment to sustainability, cultural heritage, and craftsmanship. Explore our curated selection of remarkable standout collections, designers and brands we are coveting and have on our radar! This year, once again Lagos Fashion Week brought to us numerous attention-worthy brands at the forefront of the African fashion scene.

Lagos fashion week backstage (Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week) 

Launched in 2011 in Nigeria by Omoyemi Akerele, Lagos Fashion Week has been providing a stage for talented African designers to gather and showcase their amazing works, waved with their own cultural heritages and unique African sensations.  60 designers and brands participated in offsite events, runways and installations over the five days. Environmental sustainability was one of the central themes of this year's event. 

One of the standout initiatives for our team is  the Green Access initiative. The award was launched by LFW in 2018 and was designed to promote African designers who actively incorporate environmental sustainability into their designing practices. The programme facilitates fashion sustainability by offering five selected designers workshops and mentoring sessions from key industry players on business model, public relations, brand building, along with an opportunity to exhibit commissioned works in a joint show. 

The successful finalists of emerging designers and brands for 2014 were  Dimeji Ilori, Garbe, Malite, Oya Abeo, and Revival LDN. This year, talks centred around sustainability in Africa, from sourcing to community-building, are some examples. 

Brands we loved at Lagos Fashion Week

We have been wooed by many of the participating designers from Ghana, Kenya to Nigeria and Ivory Coast. We have had the difficult task of selecting 12 of our hot picks of  African fashion designer brands at LFW we loved and also brands we considered married sustainability, design innovation,  cultural  heritage and craftsmanship beautifully on the runway to give us stellar collections. 

FIA

This veteran Nigerian fashion brand was created by three talented designers in 2015. The name FIA is the combination of the initials of the trio and from the beginning, aimed at the unconventional, making them known for their eccentric designs, in terms of colour, patterns, and silhouette. 

The SS25 collection ‘A Cord of Three Strands’, showed the journey the three creative directors underwent since  founding the brand. Collaboration, community and unity were at the heart of the collection’s design philosophy. 

On the surface, the collection appeared to consist of a body of very different kinds of garments, from layered striped dresses, balloon like one-pieces, to chequered shirts with patchwork shoulders. However, being constantly chaotic could be also a sign of consistency. The collection did a brilliant job showing diversity and inclusiveness of the design team (a small community itself).   The visual multitude of the collection echoed the theme well, from a market perspective, the collection merged visually catchy looks with more practical wearable pieces. 

(Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week)

JZO

Founded in 2014 by Joseph O. Ike and Ola Akindeinde, this menswear brand looks into the Nigerian menswear tradition and infuses it with contemporary lifestyles, to create the menswear for men in Nigeria and beyond. 

Traditional silhouette and textiles are two main sources of inspiration for the brand. Durability and environmental sustainability are also prioritised in the design process.  The JZO SS25 collection was named after Agemo, the Yoruba god Olorun’s chameleon, the messenger between gods. 

Agemo explains, the collection is about adaptability and resilience, hence the collection embracing themes around changes and transformation. JZO’s designs are hard not to love. Influence of traditional Nigerian men’s attires could be seen. Layering, lace-like patterns and elongated tops reminded one of agbada and isiagu. But even for those without Nigerian heritages, the garments could be worn in many daily occasions. The brand used hand-dyed fabrics and local cottons, scoring high on environmental consciousness, making them  one of our favourite. 

(Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week)

Kilentar 

This Nigerian brand use a naughty wordplay of ‘Kí lẹ̀ ń tà?’, or ‘what are you selling?’ in Yoruba as their name. 

The founder Michelle Adepou started her Kilentar journey from 2019, and as if to answer the question she posed to herself in the brand name, since founding, she and her team have been vowing to sell only timeless pieces connecting contemporary aesthetics with African traditions. A Kilentar lady is  fun, smart but also elegant and easy-going. She is modern but also inspired by nature and traditions. Looking at Kilentar’s design, we  totally have a vivid image of such a lady. 

In the SS25 collection, Mama Ìbéta (Ìbéta means triplets in Yoruba,) the three natural sources: earth, water, and fire were the backbones of the design thinking. Elements such as shells, earthy colours, flowy fabrics were used to reflect the nature triplets that sustain our Mother Earth. What we love about the collection is that it balanced the brand’s cultural heritage with modernity impeccably. Seeing stripy Yoruba aso oke reinterpreted into wearable pieces with various silhouettes was definitely refreshing. 

(Photo Courtesy of Bella Naija)

Ugo Monye

Ugo Monye, named after the founder/designer Ugo Monye, have shifted from producing womenswear, unisex to menswear-focused lines over the years. Yet one thing remains unchanged since their launching in 2007, their dedication to craftsmanship. 

On their Instagram page, Ugo Monye identify themselves as the tailoring company, a sign of their commitment to prioritise qualities. They have been modernising Agbada to fit the contemporary lifestyle, something rare to find amongst their peers. This year, the IFE ASO ANYI (what we like) collection showcased a mix of western and African pieces. Loose-fit and neutral tones were two characters of the designs, making them gender fluid.

Unlike most other brands at LFW, silhouette-wise, Ugo Monye chose to embrace a more traditional approach when reinterpreting African costumes. This is not to say Ugo Monye rejected innovation. It was more of a design choice of the brand to keep the Yoruba costumes recogniseable, proving to people that traditional attires could fit well with a modern lifestyle. Truly amazing move. 

(Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week)

Y’wandelag

Y’wandelag are not shy about letting the world know their ambition: to bridge African aesthetics and global audiences. Since launching, they have been working on bringing art, African craftsmanship and fashion together. Cultural sustainability has been at the core of their brand identity. 

The SS25 collection was like moveable artworks, using bold colour contrasts, lines, dots to create a very graphical, modern artsy vibe. Taking a closer look, the various materials used for the embellishments make the garments fun and sophisticated, just as the saying goes: the devil is in the details.. 

(Photo Courtesy of Bella Naija)

Rendoll

In 2019, former lawyer Reni Abina decided to pursue her passion and launch Rendoll. Since then, the self-taught designer/businesswoman has gained media attention for her simple but stunning designs. 

The SS25 collection La Dolce Vita was another collection of simplicity meeting beauty. The gathering effect visible across the collection reminded one of European neoclassical dresses, yet the colour and the texture of the fabrics brought one back to the tropical Nigerian climate. Another highly praiseable point of the collection is the inclusion of plus sized models, making Rendoll the brand for every woman. 

(Photo Courtesy of Bella Naija)

Fruché

Lagos-based Fruché founded by Frank Aghuno offered us sensation, beauty, elegance, cultural heritage and so much more. Frank had an early exposure to the industry, thanks to having a fashion designer parent. Aghuno started his creative journey from a young age.

With Fruché, the designer envisions a Nigeria with a more diverse fashion scene, and aims to break the stigmas regarding how Nigerian men and women dress themselves.

‘Do you know who I am?’ was the theme of the 2024 collection. The collection explores the hidden sentiments and emotional flows of people in the bustling urbanscape of Lagos with a wounded pride, when they face the chaos of the city, or denials from the official. 

Flowing and sheer fabrics were used to create a sense of fleetingness and clashes in a dramatic manner. Contrasted with staged poses and tutu-like fabric gatherings reflecting a strong will to express oneself. Fruché balances art with function with touch not so practical elements to carve what has been termed an opera of Lagos Fashion Week. 

(Photo Courtesy of Fruché official website) 

Orire

Lagos-based Orire debuted during the global pandemic in 2021, to express the values of the founders through clothes. Femininity, art and consciousness lie in the centre of the design. 

Small batch manufacturing and a made-to-order model put sustainability at the forefront of the brand’s concern. Despite the young history of the brand , Orire have set themselves on the right track. We look forward to more amazing works from Orire. 

We saw a continuation in silhouette and embellishing elements from the previous collection, yet the SS25 collection felt more celebratory and feminine, with the hues and prints lightened up by ribbons and bright colour choices. 

(Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week)

Imad Eduso

Established in 2017, Imad Eduso was founded by Dami Olukoya. The brand is known for the bold use of colours. The founder, as a wife and mum herself, wanted to build a brand for women, showing appreciation of women's bodies, hence her collections, from daywear to bridal-wear, are designed to be minimalist but elegant, reflecting the beauty of female bodies. 

The latest collection Laba Laba (butterfly): Flames of Growth, presented to us a confident design vision. Vivid neon colours with shiny fabrics and flashy decorative parts transformed the runway into a party of celebration. Butterfly elements made the collection more lively and fun, and at the same time signifying the growth of the brand over the years, from a cocoon to the butterfly. Keep it up Imad Eduso! 

(Photo Courtesy of Lagos Fashion Week)

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