Lagos Fashion Week Brings African Style To The Future

Every season, fashion weeks around the world show us what it means to tell a story through stunning costumes, but in Nigeria, where formal and ceremonial wear is taken very seriously, it’s only Monday. Every October, Lagos Fashion Week reopens the curtain on Africa’s thriving creative scene in a country that loves to dress up. “With all the vibrant textures, fabrics and patterns and textiles we have in our culture, style is something that is very innate, from the start to many Africans and definitely to many Nigerians. I think the earliest fit I ever got was in elementary school,” Alexander-Julian “AJ” Gibbson told me. It is this fashion scene that the Nigerian-American stylist mirrors in her latest photoshoot, which puts the Nigerian designer front and center.

“Yes, I think it’s very important to share the knowledge we see in Paris and Milan and London to New York, but we also have to acknowledge the places that inspire the people who influence the runways that we admire.” For experienced New York-based stylists, who have experienced all the major fashion weeks, Lagos Fashion Week holds a very special place. “I love Lagos Fashion Week. This is actually my favorite,” he explained. “The reason I like it fits my philosophy of Nigeria and the continent as a great source of creativity. African creativity is really thriving here… Back when I was young and had dreams that seemed far away.”

If you are in the fashion world – especially as a black person – you have probably noticed that fashion companies are not always known for telling or even spreading black people’s stories. For Gibbson, like many other black kids, the lack of representation was a huge barrier to getting into the industry in the first place. “I don’t think I felt confident enough to take fashion seriously because I didn’t know anyone or saw anyone who looked like me in the industry,” she said. “So I don’t feel like it’s something real and reasonable to happen, especially being Nigerian and coming from Houston.”

But Lagos is the other side of the same coin. Even though it goes beyond unearthing talent from across the continent, without systemic support, it took a lot of courage for creatives to get this far. “This is frustrating. Nigeria has so much talent. The number of talents is very high, just walking around the country, but they have absolutely no support from the government. Because they’re too busy supporting oil and all the other things that give them money so quickly, but then don’t realize they can push themselves as a cultural hub,” he said, summarizing the frustration of most Africans in the arts. However, what Lagos Fashion week did for Gibbson was that when no one else cared, roses really did grow out of concrete. “I feel there is a very underrated sense of community among all those who are interested in the creative arts in Nigeria, especially since this country is filled with so many young people.” AJ Gibbson details a community far removed from the violent fashion industry that the West is popularizing. Here people support each other and keep each other’s space.

For young Nigerians, last year illustrates the extent to which they stand on their own. While the Covid-19 pandemic and protests across the country against the brutal SARS police force are delaying the fashion calendar, creativity is becoming an essential part of healing and survival. And after a year of hiatus, Lagos Fashion Week returns this October, feeling more vital than ever. For Gibbson’s return to Nigeria’s fashion capital, he had to capture his extraordinary creative energy. This essence is revealed in photostory, which puts local designers, hairstylists, makeup artists and models under the gaze of renowned Nigerian photographer Stephen Tayo. “The thing I love about Stephen’s work is that it feels so real. There was never anything created by this fantasy world. I just thought his approach was the best setting for presenting Lagos Fashion Week as an entity, because I wanted to create something that felt very day-to-day in life, not too soft and not in crazy studio lighting.”

In the typical Lagosian concrete compound, we see worldly elements elevated into beautiful things. Productions from ceremonial styling cues to traditional sculptural hairdos, are the result of true collaboration between talents – “no mood board.” “When you have really talented people who know what they’re doing and have their own ideas, it gives them all free space to get creative and come up with something really beautiful,” Gibson explains. “We ordered our hairdresser [Tosin Idowu] and our makeup artist [Michael Ukponu] and basically just telling them ‘Feel free. Do whatever motivates you and do whatever pushes you.’”

Meanwhile, Gibbson is doing what he does best: elevating African designers through the “marriage of culture and style.” The setting is where Lagos Fashion Week shines, highlighting the myriad of designers from different countries who apply traditional techniques to modern silhouettes. You can feel it in the woven bags of Bamako-based Awa Meité, the vibrant textiles of Elie Kwame’s Ivorian ensemble, and the thatched fringe embellishments of Banke Kuku, which Gibbson says reminds me of an Igbo dance uniform.

With the weight of the world’s eyes on them, these designers work outside the mainstream of Western fashion, sometimes rejecting such archaic systems altogether. A lot of clothes feel like haute couture, but what is high fashion in a place where everyone dresses up to nine? “A lot of what we consider normal clothing in Nigeria, if another brand did it in London or in Paris, it would be haute couture,” Gibson agrees. “Every time I go to Nigeria I’m always the one who doesn’t dress there because of the Nigerians… ‘Wow, I’m tired of wearing clothes but you guys don’t stop!’” In the Western tradition, haute couture is qualified by being built entirely by hand from start to finish. end. But in Africa, this criterion goes beyond the runway. Tailor culture is prevalent from tailor-made everyday wear to aso-ebi (traditional color-coordinated clothing) worn to world-famous weddings in Nigeria. “The tailor spent a lot of time making this garment and mastered the technique. So it’s the same concept behind haute couture, where couturiers spend their time hand coloring, hand sewing, or incorporating these specific details. And I think the same kind of craftsmanship goes into African clothing. So it’s something that’s never far from a ready-made design.”

Here, the fashion scene is simply an acknowledgment of what is already a huge pillar of culture. But while drawing on heritage is essential, AJ Gibbson is also wary of stepping too close to notions of tradition. “The fact that the LGBTQ lifestyle is actually illegal here and the underlying homophobia is very evident in how conservative society is. But then also based on our tradition, some of the things that Westerners would see as, ‘oh, this is blurring the gender norm, this guy is wearing a wrap skirt.’ It’s actually part of our tradition. It’s nothing new for us.” He continues, “Fashion gives us the opportunity to tie back things we’ve known for centuries and then hopefully follow the Afrofuturist way of taking them to a new age.”

As Lagos is rapidly becoming the epicenter of African fashion, Gibson’s work talks about how young Africans can gain awareness and power through fashion. In this photo shoot with Stephen Tayo and some of Africa’s most extraordinary designers, Lagos Fashion Week sets the backdrop for this unique state of individualism, momentarily free from the traditional views of the Nigerian public and government. This is the world AJ Gibbson envisioned and hoped for. “We’ll get there, but it’ll take us some time.”