The Hub
Lagos Fashion Week closed its 15th edition on Sunday after five days at the tents at Federal Palace Hotel. Omoyemi Akerele started it in 2011, and fifteen years on it is widely described as Africa’s largest fashion event, the week designers, buyers and press from across the continent plan their October around. This year’s theme was CRAFTED: Heritage. Innovation. Circular Futures., and the organisers backed it with a manifesto about building supply chains that honour the makers and keep the value on the continent.
A Hertunba Model walking on the runway at the opening night of the Lagos Fashion Week 2026
The tents are not the only room, either. Iretidayo Zaccheaus was 18 when she started Street Souk in 2018, after watching her mother’s fashion souks leave out the streetwear she actually wanted to see. It is now where Nigerian streetwear goes to be found, with more than a thousand brand applications a year, crowds in the thousands and pop ups from Lagos and Abuja to Accra, London, Dubai and Los Angeles. Naomi Campbell and the late Virgil Abloh have both walked through it. “We’re not trying to adapt to where we are,” she has said. “We’re trying to get them to adapt to who we are.”
The runway is only part of the story, though. What makes Lagos feel like the centre right now is the group of women who built their labels in the last decade, some on that runway and some building their names elsewhere, who are now being worn, stocked and copied far beyond Nigeria. We are finally getting to see them clearly, and this is who we are looking at.
The Craft Keepers
Florentina Agwu, Founder and Creative Director of Hertunba
Florentina Agu started Hertunba in 2020 because she could not find the elegant, unmistakably Nigerian look her aunties wore to work, so she built one on Akwete, the handwoven Igbo cloth from the south east. Hertunba showed on the main runway at Lagos Fashion Week this year.
Elyon Adede founded Elexiay in 2018 to pull crochet away from its reputation as something your grandmother wears, and every crochet piece is made by hand by women artisans in Nigeria. The brand’s signature sweater was so recognisable that Shein copied it.
Michelle Adepoju, the British Nigerian founder of Kílẹ̀ńtàr, taught herself to design and launched in 2019 under a name taken from the Yoruba market question “what are you selling?” Her first corset tops brought in 100 orders in 2020, and she has since made Forbes 30 Under 30 and presented at Lagos Fashion Week again this year.
Nkwo Onwuka has been preaching the philosophy of less since she relaunched NKWO in 2012, and her Dakala cloth, a strip woven fabric that began life as leftover denim, has become one of the clearest answers to fashion waste on the continent. NKWO closed the second day of Lagos Fashion Week this year.
The Maximalists
Kanyinsola Onalaja launched Onalaja in 2014 and has had the kind of run that turns heads. She opened a flagship store on Victoria Island, staged an SS26 show in Lagos last year with Ciara in the audience, made her official London Fashion Week debut in February and was shortlisted for the British Fashion Council and Vogue Designer Fashion Fund. A fire ripped through her office and warehouse over the summer, and she still made it to London.
Banke Kuku
Banke Kuku spent a decade as a textile designer before turning her prints into clothing, starting with loungewear during the pandemic. Her silks are now occasion wear, made in Lagos, and she became the first Nigerian designer stocked at Galeries Lafayette in Doha.
The Storytellers
Tolu Oye, founder of Meji Meji
Tolu Oye launched Meji Meji in 2020 with face masks and bucket hats and named it after Ore Meji Street, where her grandmother lived. The brand pulls old family photographs and everyday Lagos into bright, Y2K flavoured pieces worn by Tems and Ayra Starr.
Desirée Iyama grew up around cloth, with a mother who designed and a grandmother who sewed. She launched her label in 2016, came through Lagos Fashion Week’s Green Access programme in 2021 and was back on the runway this year.
The Ones Carrying Lagos Abroad
Fisayo Longe of Kai Collective
Fisayo Longe grew up in Nigeria and launched Kai Collective from London in 2016 on a loan from her mother. Her Gaia dress has been worn by Beyoncé, and the brand has been reported to turn over more than £2 million a year. Tolu Coker opened London Fashion Week in February with King Charles in the audience, and Bubu Ogisi of IAMISIGO reached the semi finals of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers this year.
The Ones Who Opened The Door
Amaka Osakwe, Founder of Maki Oh!
None of this happened in a vacuum. Amaka Osakwe has run Maki Oh from Lagos since 2010 and built it on adire, the indigo dyed cloth of Ogun and Osun. Michelle Obama wore a Maki Oh blouse in 2013, Solange and Issa Rae have worn her since, and her work has been shown at the Museum at FIT in New York. Lisa Folawiyo started Jewel by Lisa from her home in 2005 with 20,000 naira and turned Ankara, the cloth everyone already owned, into luxury with hand beading and sequins. The label now carries her name, has shown in New York, and one of her ensembles sits in the V&A’s collection after its Africa Fashion exhibition.
Dumebi Iyamah was 17 when she started Andrea Iyamah in 2011, and her first swim collection two years later made bold Nigerian colour a resort wear staple. Michelle Obama, Gabrielle Union and Issa Rae have worn the brand, and in 2022 she was named Young Person of the Year at The Future Awards Africa. Both Lisa Folawiyo and Andrea Iyamah were part of this year’s Lagos Fashion Week.
The Ones To Watch
Imad Eduso used this year’s Lagos Fashion Week to show menswear for the first time, a collection called Into the Wild. Keep that name close.
Imad Eduso
Why It Matters
Lisa Folawiyo
These women are building in very different directions, from handwoven Akwete, adire and hand crochet to recycled denim, silk prints, beaded mesh and graphic tops, and that range is exactly what makes this moment feel real. Maki Oh, Lisa Folawiyo and Andrea Iyamah opened the door years ago. This newer group is walking through it with diaspora customers, global stockists and loyal online audiences already in place, and more and more, the place the world comes to find them is Lagos.
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