These Designers Are Ready to Tell Their Stories on the Lagos Fashion Week Runway
Even though she grew up around fashion — her mother and uncle were designers, her grandmother sold textiles, and her father worked in the textile industry — Samiat Salami didn’t aspire to be a designer. Her entry into the sector was purely accidental. “My first foray was home goods,” Salami says. “I started to imagine the textiles around me as napkins and tea towels and that’s how I got into the textile industry. And then I made a robe and everybody was like ‘We like this robe, make more clothes.’”
This year, under her brand Oya Abeo, Salami is one of the five finalists of the 2024 Green Access program. The initiative is a fashion accelerator set up by Lagos Fashion Week and Style House Files to support emerging designers with practical skills, institutional backing and invaluable mentorship opportunities. Green Access has long been a platform to discover inventive designers focused on sustainable fashion practices.
One such designer is Bella Adeleke, whose brand Garbe focuses on discovering new entry points into sustainability practices. First started as a streetwear brand with a focus on Nigerian history, Garbe has since evolved into a slow, ethically conscious label particular about reusing waste and investing in local design processes. After the borders were forced to close during the 2020 pandemic, Adeleke could no longer import t-shirts. This got her thinking about what her brand could be without the fickleness of border closures and unprecedented events.“I started looking at alternatives. So we started doing quarterly drops, which included ready-to-wear, functional pieces inspired by Lagos,” Adeleke tells OkayAfrica. The goal, as she says, was creating pieces that are stylish but functional, appropriate for work and suitable for leisure.
Like Adeleke, Rosette Ale, founder of Revival London, has sustainability at the heart of her womenswear brand. “After seeing the devastating Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, I wanted to create a fashion brand that would offer a sustainable and ethical alternative, focusing on waste reduction, female empowerment, and circularity,” Ale tells OkayAfrica.Finding the right tone
With Oya Abeo, Salami is reviving joy and playfulness. “Like a perpetual vacation,” is how she describes it. Salami says her pieces, which feature bright colors, cheerful prints, flattering cuts and comfortably sensual silhouettes, are designed to honor the inner child of whoever wears them.
Her inspiration comes from tropical colors, particularly the fruit trees she grew up seeing while living in Lagos. “I am a Nigerian woman in my thirties and our culture tends to dictate that as we age there are things we can and cannot wear and I think it’s like a quiet rebellion.”
As with Adeleke’s functional sustainability approach, the work of finding the right tone as an African designer is an important selling point. For these three designers, this tone is closely tied to their journeys and how they see the world. Adeleke, who has been in the business for over 10 years, sees this as a rebirth, a chance to reframe her ideas and make a statement.
Ale, on the other hand, focuses on staying true to her personal conviction that fashion can look good while also doing good.
As for Salami, this feels like a debutante ball; complete with the nerves, the uncertainty, but also the excitement. These feelings are closely tied to the fact that the brands will be showcasing their pieces (they are expected to distill and reflect their brand’s sensibility into only three designs) on the hallowed Lagos Fashion Week runway. While no judges are waiting to award scores on their performance, there is no doubt that these designers have a lot to prove, mostly to themselves.
Photo courtesy of Bella Adeleke.
Bella Adeleke says Garbe’s pieces on the Lagos Fashion Week runway “are catered to celebration, to fun, to what Lagos is, but from a functional standpoint.”
Cutting down
With the three-design limitation, Adeleke, Salami and Ale have been hard at work, producing pieces that reflect their present state of mind, but also send a strong signal about where they are trying to go. “The pieces [Garbe is] showcasing are catered to celebration, to fun, to what Lagos is, but from a functional standpoint,” Adeleke says. The ultimate goal, she adds, is that Garbe becomes a mainstay in the wardrobe of many — the go-to for all occasions in the ways that matter.
Ale is all about statement-making, but also about inspiring mindfulness and honoring history. “The designs I’ll be showing are a fusion of bold, vibrant West African influences with '90s-inspired style,” she says. “Every piece will highlight sustainable practices such as upcycling and zero-waste design, offering one-of-a-kind garments that reflect a blend of cultural heritage and forward-thinking fashion.” What this means, according to Ale, are colorful pieces boasting of impeccable craftsmanship, all pointing towards a penchant for resourcefulness.
Photo courtesy of Rosette Ale.
Rosette Ale of Revival London, says her pieces at Lagos Fashion Week are “a fusion of bold, vibrant West African influences with '90s-inspired style.’”
In terms of what to expect from her designs this year, Salami is keen on playing around with traditional textile processes. “What I try to do is tell modern tales — a lot of the motifs I choose are inspired by nature and what our natural world means to us. I am also experimenting with beadwork for the first time and as far as the silhouettes, we are going to see a lot of playfulness and sexiness that’s part of my work.”
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