NIGERIA: The 2021 Lagos Fashion Week was celebrated between October 27 and 30 with different activities that drove the Nigerian and African fashion industry to the limelight.
Fashion events are becoming a frequent activity in Nigeria as many Nigerians feel that the pandemic has reduced their exposure to business opportunities. Now, companies are trying to reorient their business model to invest and showcase their talents through clothing made in Nigeria so that global entities increase their awareness of the proposed value too.
Indeed, many sectors in Nigeria need to advance economically, but not all have the same flexibility as fashion, as an industry, already requires one to be more flexible and more open to exposure than other sectors.
Emerging fashion publications featuring Nigerian youth or being published by Nigerian youth will lead one to conclude that people are undoubtedly becoming aware of the economic importance of fashion. Yet, we are to explain how fashion adds to the Nigerian economy as a whole.
Benefits fashion brings to local economy
At fashion events, one will see carefully selected audiences or thousands of people flocking to benefit from the event. However, it is not easy to unite people because more than beauty and styles, we all seek the optimization of resources and business or networking opportunities.
In the end, fashion models look amazing, but many of those young men and women at some point support their families or pay for their studies with rallies. Business strategies are applied in such a manner that the organizer, the participants, and the visitors and promoters of the event have something tangible on the table to share.
This is how fashion becomes in a way part of location marketing and promotion to escalate as a business and later become some kind of tourist attraction. Fashion has proven to be profitable across businesses as it promotes the travel, restaurant, and hospitality industries too.
Lagos Fashion Week 2021
Lagostic reads that Lagos Fashion Week is a platform created in 2011 by Omoyemi Akerele, founder and executive director of Style House Files. The goal is to boost and improve the Nigerian and African fashion industries, and the state of Lagos in particular. Among the sponsors, we find listed are the MTN Group, Heineken, the British Council, Fetswallet, and others.
Akerele’s Lagos Fashion Week event aims to bring together buyers, sellers, and consumers, as well as media platforms, to reflect and publicize current and trending collections of locally made designs and products around the world. The creative development agency gives African products the chance of showcasing their brands to the world.
Themed “The Future Starts Now,” LW21 underlined that unless one works hard towards one’s goals, nothing will happen. The event preached and educated Nigerians in a way that they should hustle for their survival.
“The Future Starts Now” teaches the average Nigerian that beauty is not to be defined as merely the physical, attractive look of an individual: it has to be contained into artistry and strategies to ultimately sell.
Significance of Lagos Fashion Week
Lagos Fashion Week has enormous advantages in Nigeria and the African economy, as the event witnesses celebrities, top businessmen, politicians, and well to do individuals around the world, buying and selling will experience a boost, fashion Designers will get endorsement deals and this will in one way or the other reduce the unemployment rate of the country.
It is an opportunity for fashion creatives to meet and display their talents and interact among themselves for the development and enhancement of their business.
The event serves as an opportunity for the local designers to come to the limelight.
The event has been so dynamic ranging from the atmosphere, people, and the features present or showcasing during the show. Has put not only single-handedly put Lagos on the Nigerian map, but also the African and world map.
Conclusion
Many of the “made in Nigeria” dresses, garments, and designer skins on display during fashion events may not be seen again after the red carpet. Some of the designers will also exhibit, but once or twice, while others will become entrepreneurs.
To ensure the rotation of resources in the Nigerian economy, fashion has to offer these exclusive or distinctive collector-level products, in addition to products that can enter the general market and be sponsored.
The materials and textures used must also continue to be produced and distributed locally. There is no logic in buying an ankara (made by Nigerian rappers) for 15,000 nairas (22 USD) when one can get a pair of foreign jeans for 4,000 (7 USD). This prohibitive price is where the regularization of trade must go.
