No products in the cart.
Lagos Fashion Week 2026 opens on Wednesday, 28 October and runs to Sunday, 1 November in Victoria Island, Lagos, under the theme “CRAFTED: Heritage. Innovation. Circular Futures.” Style House Files, founded by Omoyemi Akerele, is behind the event, which is listed as Heineken Lagos Fashion Week 2026. The season pairs African-making skills and material knowledge with contemporary design, and it arrives less than a year after the platform won the Earthshot Prize.
The theme places heritage technique and artisanal skill alongside contemporary design, and the calendar shows the idea in action. The Fashion Business Series opens on Wednesday with a session titled CRAFTED, and the word returns on Saturday in the title of the Business Day session, “Capital, Craft & Commerce: Scaling African Fashion for Global Demand”.
Circular Futures, the last line of the theme, has initiatives associated with the platform behind it. Green Access, its accelerator since 2018, named five finalists for the 2025 cycle, each asked to present three looks built on sustainable materials and craftsmanship, and the programme partnered with NAHOUS on a one-week residency. Global Fashion Agenda groups Green Access with Woven Threads and SwapShop as the programmes that have built circularity and traditional craftsmanship into the platform, and YNaija lists Fashion Focus Africa among the mentorship initiatives it ties to the event.
The Federal Palace Hotel Ballroom hosts the business programme from Wednesday to Friday. On the business side, Deloitte presents fashion business modelling and franchising, and the Africa Finance Corporation has a session on Friday. The Italian Institute of Fashion Management presents an interdisciplinary approach to fashion education, while the Fashion Lab x Olaniwun Ajayi is aimed at legal practitioners. Akerele sits for a fireside chat on Thursday, and Nivea presents a session that day. Financing runs through the programme, with a Bank of Industry session on Wednesday and, on Saturday, an invitation-only Business Day on scaling African fashion for global demand.
Runway blocks fill the evenings from Thursday to Saturday, with offsite presentations on Wednesday evening and across Sunday. Retail has two routes. XRetail, the citywide programme at Alara, Vanestyle and Zinkata, opens at 10 am daily, and the Lagos Fashion Week x Alara showrooms admit buyers and press as well as guests. Sunday moves offsite with IAMISIGO, Gozel Green, Emmy Kasbit and an open studio from Andrea Iyamah, and Lisa Folawiyo closes the week.
Adebayo Oke-Lawal launched Orange Culture in 2011 and showed his first collection at Lagos Fashion Week that year. In 2014, the label was named a semifinalist for the first LVMH Prize, and Business of Fashion reports that the attention brought stockists including Browns and Farfetch. The label builds menswear and womenswear from Nigerian and other African references and streetwear silhouettes, according to the same profile. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds an Orange Culture ensemble from the Autumn/Winter 2020 collection, a hibiscus-print blouse and trousers manufactured in Nigeria. The label is presented offsite on Wednesday evening.
Lisa Folawiyo, who closes the week on Sunday, started her label in 2005 as Jewel by Lisa. The museum holds her work too and documents her use of Ankara in contrasting prints, with hand beadwork that can take more than 250 hours on some pieces. The museum describes Ankara as central to Folawiyo’s work and cultural heritage. A dress in the V&A collection features silk and cotton dyed by the Ido Aro, a group of traditional dyers based in Abeokuta, and finished with intricate beadwork.
Emmy Kasbit presents twice during the week, once with Alara on Wednesday and once on her own on Sunday. The label is known for turning handwoven Akwete fabric into modern silhouettes, according to The Guardian’s coverage of last year’s edition, which it opened.
Lagos Fashion Week won the Build a Waste-Free World category of the Earthshot Prize on 5 November 2025, three days after that year’s edition closed. The prize carries £1 million, and the announcement describes the platform as the first Nigerian initiative and the first in the fashion and textile ecosystem to receive it.
Earthshot recognised a model in which every designer who shows must demonstrate sustainable practice, including how materials are sourced and dyed and how garments are produced and transported. The announcement also credits investment in local supply chains and the revival of native craftsmanship. Akerele said the recognition belongs to the wider community of designers and artisans behind the platform, according to Bizcommunity.
Lagos plans to use the prize money to replicate the model across five fashion weeks in Kigali, Dakar and Accra by 2030, and Bizcommunity reports that Akerele intends to set up a circular fashion hub in Lagos that will travel to other African cities.
Stay inspired with exclusive brand features, luxury insights, and the latest in fine fashion and beauty — directly in your inbox.
