How One Woman Built Africa’s Fashion Capital and Won the Earthshot Prize

From Lawyer to Global Fashion Revolutionary, The Extraordinary Journey of Omoyemi Akerele and Lagos Fashion Week

There’s a photograph from 2011 that tells an audacious story.

In it, a handful of Nigerian designers stand on a modest runway in Lagos, showcasing their collections to a small audience. The setup is simple, almost humble. The budget is tight. The international fashion world isn’t watching. Not yet.

But the woman who organized that first Lagos Fashion Week, a former lawyer named Omoyemi Akerele, carried a vision that seemed almost impossibly ambitious: to position Lagos (chaotic, vibrant, relentlessly creative Lagos) as one of Africa’s fashion capitals. To build a platform that would launch African designers onto the global stage. To prove that African fashion was not just exotic curiosity but serious business.

Fourteen years later, in November 2025, Omoyemi Akerele stood on a very different stage: accepting the Earthshot Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious environmental awards, established by Britain’s Prince William.

Lagos Fashion Week had beaten 2,500 nominees from 72 countries to win £1 million (approximately ₦1.9 billion) in the “Build a Waste-Free World” category, recognized for redefining Africa’s fashion industry through sustainability, craftsmanship, and circular economy innovation.

From that modest 2011 runway to the Earthshot Prize podium: this is the story of how one woman’s refusal to accept limitations transformed not just Nigerian fashion, but the entire African creative economy.

The Lawyer Who Walked Away

Omoyemi Akerele’s path to fashion revolutionary wasn’t obvious or straightforward.

Born in Lagos on May 13, 1978, she followed what appeared to be a conventional trajectory: law degree from the University of Lagos, Master’s in International Economic Law from the University of Warwick in the UK, then a prestigious position at the Nigerian law firm Olaniwun Ajayi & Co. from 2000 to 2003.

On paper, it looked like success. In reality, Akerele was miserable.

“I worked around people who seemed to be enjoying their jobs and I wanted something that would give me a sense of belonging,” she later recalled in an interview with System Magazine. “When I decided to walk out of my job as a lawyer in 2004, the reason was purely that I was not enjoying what I was doing.”

This is a story she says she never tires of sharing, because when she thinks about how she started and where Lagos Fashion Week stands today, “I didn’t see it coming.”

The transition didn’t begin with fashion specifically, but with corporate consulting and personal branding work. Akerele founded Exclusive Styling with Bola Balogun in 2004, and they began styling celebrities for TV shows including Big Brother, Idols West Africa, and Deal or No Deal. She became fashion editor of True Love West Africa, a lifestyle magazine, and together they “pioneered and revolutionized styling in Nigeria.”

But even as Akerele built her profile in fashion styling and image consulting, she saw something larger that needed addressing: a massive gap in infrastructure, support, and global positioning for Nigerian fashion talent.

Nigerian designers were creating extraordinary work. Their craftsmanship was impeccable. Their cultural references were rich and deep. Their creativity was undeniable. But they lacked platforms, business development support, access to international markets, and recognition as serious players in global fashion.

“I knew that we had the talent here,” Akerele explained, “and I thought we could bring people together and offer them a platform to show their work. Then through that we could train people and provide opportunities.”

In 2011, Akerele took the leap that would define her life’s work: she founded Lagos Fashion Week, produced through her fashion business development agency Style House Files.

She was 33 years old. She had no fashion week experience. She was building something that didn’t exist in Nigeria’s fashion ecosystem.

As she herself acknowledged: “You don’t just get up and start a fashion week.”

Yet that’s exactly what she did.

Year One: The Audacious Beginning

The inaugural Lagos Fashion Week in 2011 was modest by today’s standards, but revolutionary for its time and context.

More than 40 designers presented collections, including names that would become pillars of African fashion: Lisa Folawiyo, Maki Oh, Nkwo, Bridget Awosika. The event drew buyers, media, and fashion enthusiasts who sensed they were witnessing something significant: the birth of a platform that could genuinely transform Nigerian fashion’s trajectory.

From the beginning, Akerele’s vision extended beyond the runway spectacle. That same year, she established The Fashion Focus Fund (formerly Young Designer of The Year), an annual competition and year-long incubator program designed to assist emerging designers in establishing business structures, practices, and scalability.

This was the blueprint that would define Lagos Fashion Week’s approach: Not just showcasing beautiful clothes, but building the entire ecosystem needed for a thriving fashion industry: business mentorship, technical training, market access, international partnerships, and sustainable practices.

The message was clear: African fashion would be taken seriously as business, not just craft or cultural curiosity.

Building the Ecosystem: Beyond the Runway

Over the next decade, Lagos Fashion Week evolved from a single annual event into a comprehensive platform driving African fashion’s development across multiple dimensions.

The Five Pillars of Growth

Akerele structured Lagos Fashion Week around five strategic pillars:

Creativity: Positioning Lagos as one of Africa’s creative capitals Entrepreneurship: Building the sector’s capacity to contribute meaningfully to Nigeria’s economy Talent Development: Creating pathways for emerging designers to build sustainable careers Market Access: Connecting African designers with international buyers, retailers, and media Sustainability: Pioneering circular fashion practices and responsible production

Fashion Focus Africa

This talent development platform became a cornerstone of Lagos Fashion Week’s impact. It provides emerging designers across Africa with:

• Business development workshops
• Creative skill-building
• Mentorship from established designers and industry experts
• Opportunities for capacity building
• Access to resources and networks

Through Fashion Focus Africa, dozens of young designers received the foundation they needed to build sustainable fashion businesses.

Fashion Business Series

Recognizing that creativity alone doesn’t build thriving businesses, Akerele launched the Fashion Business Series, a platform dedicated to facilitating conversations between Nigerian and international fashion industry leaders.

Past themes included “Beyond Fashion” and “The Future of Fashion: Manufacturing,” addressing the practical challenges African designers face: sourcing materials, manufacturing at scale, distribution, pricing, branding, and accessing capital.

These weren’t theoretical academic discussions, they were practical problem-solving sessions addressing real barriers to African fashion’s growth.

Green Access: Sustainability Before It Was Trendy

Long before “sustainable fashion” became a global buzzword, Akerele was building it into Lagos Fashion Week’s DNA.

In 2015, the same year Heineken Nigeria became the official title sponsor, Lagos Fashion Week launched Green Access, a competition and runway show designed to raise awareness among Nigerian students about sustainable fashion choices.

The program offers five selected designers:

• Workshops and mentoring from industry leaders
• Training on sustainable business models
• Brand-building support
• Public relations guidance
• Opportunities to exhibit commissioned works in joint shows

The 2024 Green Access finalists included Dimeji Ilori, Garbe, Malite, Oya Abeo, and Revival LDN; each demonstrating innovative approaches to environmental sustainability in design.

Green Access embodied Akerele’s philosophy: sustainability isn’t optional or trendy; it’s survival.

The Global Recognition Begins

As Lagos Fashion Week matured, international recognition followed.

2017: MoMA Advisory

Akerele was invited to serve on the advisory committee for “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), one of the world’s most prestigious cultural institutions.

The exhibition featured African designers including Loza Maléombho and African textiles including Kente cloth, real Dutch wax, and Dashiki from Lagos. Akerele also spoke about African fashion’s global impact at the accompanying MoMA Live conference.

For African fashion to be represented at MoMA (and for a Nigerian fashion professional to advise the curatorial team) signaled a fundamental shift in how global institutions viewed African creativity.

International Partnerships

Lagos Fashion Week forged strategic partnerships that created unprecedented opportunities for African designers:

• British Council collaborations bringing African designers to international platforms
• London Fashion Week partnerships showcasing Nigerian talent in one of fashion’s Big Four capitals
• Pitti Immagine connections (Italy’s prestigious fashion trade show)
• Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) work developing export capacity

These weren’t vanity partnerships, they created concrete pathways for African designers to access international markets, buyers, and media.

Business of Fashion Global 500

From 2017 through 2022, Akerele was consistently named to Business of Fashion’s Global 500 list; recognizing the people shaping the global fashion industry.

The recognition positioned Akerele alongside fashion’s biggest names: designers, executives, editors, and influencers who drive industry evolution. An African woman building African fashion infrastructure was acknowledged as shaping global fashion’s future.

2022: Victoria & Albert Museum

Runway footage from Lagos Fashion Week was featured in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s groundbreaking “Africa Fashion” exhibition, the V&A’s largest fashion exhibition ever and the first to focus specifically on African fashion’s global contributions.

Akerele gave the keynote address at the private view and served as advisor to the curatorial team, once again demonstrating Lagos Fashion Week’s role in reshaping how global institutions engage with African creativity.

The Pandemic Pivot: Woven Threads

When COVID-19 devastated the global fashion industry in 2020, Lagos Fashion Week could have simply canceled. Many fashion weeks did.

Instead, Akerele saw opportunity.

In 2020, Lagos Fashion Week launched Woven Threads, an initiative focused on driving Africa’s fashion industry toward a circular economy, exploring traditional textiles, waste management, and technology’s role in sustainable fashion.

Backed by Heineken and featuring expert sessions with industry leaders, Woven Threads became an annual sustainability-focused showcase highlighting innovation in circular design and responsible production within Africa’s fashion ecosystem.

The initiative examined:

• Traditional textile techniques that inherently practice circularity (weaving, natural dyeing, zero-waste construction)
• Waste management solutions for fashion industry byproducts
• Technology integration enabling sustainable production at scale
• Community empowerment through craft-driven fashion
• Economic viability of sustainable fashion business models

Woven Threads wasn’t reactive crisis management. It was strategic positioning. As the global fashion industry grappled with sustainability challenges, Lagos Fashion Week was demonstrating that African fashion, rooted in traditional craft and community-centered production, offered solutions.

This commitment to sustainability would ultimately lead to the Earthshot Prize recognition.

The Latest Outing: Lagos Fashion Week 2024

October 23-27, 2024 marked a milestone: Lagos Fashion Week’s 15th anniversary and its largest event to date.

More than 60 designers presented new collections to approximately 15,000 guests at the Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos under the theme “COMMUNE”, celebrating unity, community, and the collaborative spirit of African fashion.

The Energy Was Electric

International fashion media, buyers, and influencers descended on Lagos in unprecedented numbers. Tamu McPherson, renowned global fashion influencer, attended alongside editors from Essence, Business of Fashion, L’Officiel, and other major publications.

As one attendee noted: “During my recent conversations at New York Fashion Week, I witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in Lagos Fashion Week from international guests and creatives.”

Lagos wasn’t just hosting a fashion week, it was asserting itself as a fashion capital that global fashion couldn’t ignore.

Standout Collections

The four-day runway schedule showcased the extraordinary range of African design:

Orange Culture (Adebayo Oke-Lawal): Continued pioneering gender-fluid design and sustainable practices with eco-friendly fabrics proving that style and environmental consciousness coexist beautifully.

Emmy Kasbit: Marked a decade in fashion with “Recollection,” brilliantly reimagining signature Akwete motifs into modern stories of community and consciousness.

Imad Eduso: Presented “Laba Laba: Flames of Growth,” sending butterflies dancing through vibrant silhouettes speaking to transformation and renewal with neon colors and shiny fabrics.

Iamisigo (Bubu Ogisi): Impressed with carefully knitted bikini sets paired with thigh-high knitted socks, showcasing technical mastery and contemporary African aesthetics.

Rendoll: Delivered confident tailoring and sleek feminine silhouettes balancing modern polish with wearable design.

Lila Bare: Focused on natural dyeing techniques using botanicals like rosemary and the “toilet paper plant,” embodying sustainability while pushing creative boundaries.

Pepperrow: Merged heritage with modernity through innovative fabric use and layering celebrating African identity.

Fruché (Frank Aghuno): Explored urban Lagos’s emotional landscape with the theme “Do you know who I am?” using flowing sheer fabrics creating dramatic contrasts.

Orire: Made headlines by featuring a pregnant model on the runway—a refreshing acknowledgment of women’s multi-dimensionality rarely seen at major fashion events.

Inclusivity and Representation

One of 2024’s most talked-about aspects was runway diversity. Models of varying skin tones, sizes, and body types reflected Lagos Fashion Week’s modern direction, proving representation sits at the event’s heart.

Nigerian artist Davido walked for Ugo Monye. Influencer Symply Tacha modeled for Lush Hair. The runway wasn’t just about clothes, it was about who gets to occupy fashion spaces and whose bodies are celebrated.

Street Style as Spectacle

Outside the runway, guests brought their own fashion fire. Bold colors, statement accessories, and fearless individuality dominated street style, with fashion influencers and attendees treating Lagos Fashion Week as platform for self-expression.

The street style energy reinforced what makes Lagos Fashion Week unique: fashion here isn’t precious or exclusive. It’s vibrant, accessible, democratic, and alive.

Strategic Partnerships

The 2024 edition featured significant partnerships signaling Lagos Fashion Week’s growing commercial viability:

Bicester Collection (luxury outlet operator) announced plans to stock Nigerian designers at their upcoming New York location: concrete market access for African fashion in the global luxury sector.

Nahous and Temple Muse partnerships allowed guests to shop directly from participating designers, bridging the runway-to-retail gap often missing at fashion weeks.

Essence Ventures deepened engagement, with Chief Community Officer Barkue Tubman-Zawolo noting: “We’re a community, and I think that’s what we get to do for our audience is sort of take them on a path that I think could be special.”

These weren’t sponsorships for brand visibility; they were strategic commercial partnerships creating real business opportunities for African designers.

The Earthshot Prize: Global Validation

Then came the announcement that would catapult Lagos Fashion Week into global environmental leadership.

The Nomination

In 2024, Lagos Fashion Week was announced as a finalist for the 2025 Earthshot Prize in the “Build a Waste-Free World” category.

Out of nearly 2,500 nominees from 72 countries, Lagos Fashion Week was selected as one of 15 finalists, and the only African fashion platform recognized.

The Earthshot Prize, established in 2020 by Prince William, is designed to discover and scale groundbreaking solutions to Earth’s most pressing environmental challenges. It’s governed by a prestigious council including Queen Rania of Jordan, actress Cate Blanchett, economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, fashion designer Stella McCartney, and environmentalist David Attenborough.

Being named a finalist meant Lagos Fashion Week stood alongside the world’s most innovative environmental solutions; not as fashion curiosity, but as genuine sustainability leader.

The Recognition

The Earthshot Prize specifically recognized Lagos Fashion Week for:

Mandatory sustainability requirements: Every designer wishing to show at Lagos Fashion Week must demonstrate commitment to sustainable practice: from material sourcing and dyeing to garment production and transportation. These standards ensure responsible and ethical practices throughout the supply chain.

Circularity focus: Championing circular fashion economy principles through Woven Threads and other initiatives.

Craft-driven innovation: Centering traditional African craft techniques that inherently practice sustainability: hand-weaving, natural dyeing, zero-waste construction, community-based production.

Community empowerment: Creating jobs, preserving cultural heritage, and transforming lives through fashion that’s not just beautiful but meaningful and responsible.

Systemic change: Not just encouraging individual designers to be sustainable, but building infrastructure and standards that make sustainability the baseline for African fashion.

As the Earthshot Prize stated: “By placing circularity, craft-driven innovation, and community empowerment at their core, they’re tackling fashion’s biggest issues of overproduction and overconsumption.”

The Win

In 2025, Lagos Fashion Week was announced as one of five Earthshot Prize winners.

The event, hosted with performances by renowned artists, celebrated solutions offering genuine hope for environmental restoration.

Lagos Fashion Week would receive £1 million (approximately ₦1.9 billion) to scale its sustainability work.

But beyond the money, the win represented something profound: Global acknowledgment that African fashion (often dismissed as “ethnic” or “craft”) is actually leading the conversation on how fashion can be sustainable, community-centered, and economically viable.

Akerele’s Response

In her acceptance remarks, Akerele’s characteristic humility and community focus shone through:

“The recognition from The Earthshot Prize is not just about me or Lagos Fashion Week, but about the community of designers, artisans, and young people who continue to prove that African fashion has something powerful and lasting to offer the world. Fashion has the power to create jobs, preserve culture, and transform lives – that is why we do this work, and why being nominated as a Finalist will allow us to keep pushing for a future where fashion is not just beautiful, but also meaningful and responsible.”

She continued: “For us, sustainability is not a trend — it is survival.”

National Pride

President Bola Tinubu immediately congratulated Akerele, with his spokesperson noting:

“The Lagos Fashion Week has not only become a platform for innovation but also for environmentally sustainable creativity. This feat is a clear demonstration of the audacity of vision and purpose. Ms. Akerele stands as an inspiration to many women and men, showing that bold ideas can transform industries and communities.”

The President added that the recognition “reinforces Nigeria’s leadership in Africa’s creative economy and global sustainability movement.”

For Nigeria (often portrayed globally through conflict, corruption, and poverty) to be celebrated for environmental innovation and creative leadership represented a narrative shift of profound significance.

The Omoyemi Akerele Philosophy: What Makes Lagos Fashion Week Different

After 15 years and the Earthshot Prize win, clear patterns emerge in how Akerele has built and sustained Lagos Fashion Week. Her approach offers lessons for anyone building platforms, industries, or movements.

1. Start Where You Are, With What You Have

Akerele didn’t wait for perfect conditions, massive funding, or complete expertise. She saw a need, assembled resources she could access, and started.

“I knew that we had the talent here, and I thought we could bring people together and offer them a platform to show their work.”

The first Lagos Fashion Week wasn’t polished or international-standard. It was good enough to begin, and improvement came through doing.

2. Build Ecosystems, Not Just Events

Lagos Fashion Week could have remained a runway show: designers present collections, buyers attend, everyone goes home. Instead, Akerele built comprehensive infrastructure:

• Talent development programs
• Business mentorship
• Sustainability initiatives
• Market access facilitation
• Media training
• International partnerships

She understood that showcasing talent without building business capacity, market connections, and support infrastructure would create short-term excitement but no lasting industry transformation.

3. Make the Global Local

As Akerele told System Magazine: “For me, the future of the region lies in making the global local.”

Rather than trying to make African fashion conform to Western standards, Lagos Fashion Week has consistently positioned African aesthetics, production methods, and business approaches as valid (even superior) alternatives to Western fashion models.

When global fashion discusses sustainability, Lagos Fashion Week demonstrates that African traditional craft has always practiced circular fashion. When global fashion discusses community, African fashion shows what genuinely community-centered production looks like.

Lagos Fashion Week hasn’t tried to be New York or Paris with African designers. It’s built something distinctly African that global fashion now studies and emulates.

4. Sustainability Isn’t Optional

Long before Earthshot Prize recognition, Akerele embedded sustainability into Lagos Fashion Week’s structure:

Green Access launched in 2015. Woven Threads in 2020. Mandatory sustainability requirements for all participating designers came gradually but firmly.

“For us, sustainability is not a trend — it is survival,” Akerele explained, recognizing that Africa (disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing least to it) cannot afford fashion’s wasteful Western model.

5. Community Over Competition

Akerele consistently emphasizes “co-creation and collaboration within our community.”

During COVID-19, Lagos Fashion Week brought people together to source and produce PPE, supporting government efforts. As Akerele noted: “It was groundbreaking for us to see people in this fragmented ecosystem working together. Our community has been strengthened because we’ve realised that we can do more together.”

This collaborative ethos extends to how Lagos Fashion Week operates: supporting competitors, sharing knowledge, building collective capacity rather than hoarding advantage.

6. Long-term Thinking

Lagos Fashion Week is now 15 years old. Many fashion platforms collapse within 3-5 years. Akerele’s long-term commitment and consistent vision have allowed cumulative impact that short-term projects can’t achieve.

Designers who showed in 2011 are now established brands. Students who attended Green Access workshops now mentor the next generation. International partnerships built over years create sustained market access.

7. Prove Through Doing

Akerele doesn’t spend much energy arguing that African fashion deserves recognition. She builds platforms that demonstrate it undeniably.

The Victoria & Albert Museum doesn’t feature Lagos Fashion Week because Akerele lobbied them, they feature it because the work is undeniably significant. MoMA didn’t invite her advisory input as diversity gesture, they recognized genuine expertise.

The proof is in the platform, the designers launched, the international recognition earned, the Earthshot Prize won.

The Ripple Effect: How Lagos Fashion Week Changed African Fashion

Lagos Fashion Week’s impact extends far beyond its own platform. It fundamentally altered African fashion’s trajectory.

Launching Brands to Global Recognition

Designers who showed at Lagos Fashion Week have achieved international prominence:

Orange Culture (Adebayo Oke-Lawal) showed at Paris Fashion Week and dresses international celebrities.

Kenneth Ize went from Lagos Fashion Week to LVMH Prize finalist and collaboration with Beyoncé.

Lisa Folawiyo (who showed in 2011) now retails internationally and dressed Michelle Obama.

Maki Oh (also 2011) has dressed Beyoncé, Lupita Nyong’o, and gained global stockists.

These aren’t accidents; they’re results of Lagos Fashion Week providing visibility, business development, and market connections that created pathways to international success.

Establishing Infrastructure Standards

Other African fashion platforms now follow Lagos Fashion Week’s model:

• Sustainability requirements for participating designers
• Business development programming alongside runway shows
• Mentorship and capacity-building initiatives
• International partnership cultivation
• Focus on commercial viability alongside creative excellence

Lagos Fashion Week established the blueprint for how African fashion platforms can drive genuine industry development rather than just host runway shows.

Shifting Global Narratives

Before Lagos Fashion Week, African fashion was often presented as:

• “Ethnic” curiosity
• Traditional craft separate from contemporary fashion
• Cultural heritage rather than forward-looking design
• Aid project rather than business

Lagos Fashion Week consistently positions African fashion as:

• Contemporary, innovative, and forward-thinking
• Business with serious commercial potential
• Leadership in sustainability and ethical production
• Cultural strength, not nostalgic tradition

This narrative shift opened doors for African designers globally and changed how international fashion engages with African creativity.

Economic Impact

Lagos Fashion Week generates significant economic activity:

• Employing thousands directly and indirectly
• Creating market opportunities for designers, artisans, photographers, models, stylists, and other creative professionals
• Attracting international buyers who place orders worth millions
• Positioning fashion as legitimate economic sector worthy of investment
• Contributing to Nigeria’s creative economy growth

The Nigerian creative economy (of which fashion is significant component) now contributes meaningfully to GDP and employment, with Lagos Fashion Week playing catalytic role.

Inspiring the Next Generation

Perhaps most importantly, Lagos Fashion Week demonstrates to young Africans that:

• Creative industries can be viable careers
• African platforms can achieve global recognition
• Building institutions that transform sectors is possible
• African aesthetics, values, and approaches are valuable globally

Thousands of young Africans now pursue fashion careers because Lagos Fashion Week proved it’s possible to build international fashion careers from Lagos.

The Challenges: What Lagos Fashion Week Still Navigates

Despite extraordinary success, Lagos Fashion Week (and African fashion broadly) still faces significant challenges:

Sourcing and Manufacturing

As Akerele acknowledged: “The biggest challenges we face as a fashion community are around sourcing, due to our long-standing dependence on imported raw materials.”

Nigeria’s textile industry collapsed in the 1980s-90s due to policy failures and cheap imports. Designers struggle to source quality local fabrics, forcing expensive imports that undermine price competitiveness.

Manufacturing capacity for fashion production at scale remains limited, creating quality control and delivery timeline challenges.

Access to Capital

African fashion designers struggle to access business loans and investment capital. Traditional banks don’t understand creative industries. Fashion-specific investment is scarce.

This limits designers’ ability to scale production, open retail locations, hire teams, and invest in marketing.

Infrastructure Deficits

Unreliable electricity makes production costly and unpredictable. Poor road networks complicate material sourcing and product distribution. Limited internet connectivity in some areas hampers digital marketing and e-commerce.

These infrastructure challenges that affect all Nigerian businesses hit fashion particularly hard.

Market Size and Spending Power

While Nigeria has 200+ million people, actual fashion market remains relatively small due to poverty, inflation, and economic challenges.

International market access is critical because domestic market alone can’t sustain the fashion industry at desired scale.

Intellectual Property Protection

Weak intellectual property enforcement means designer collections are frequently copied and sold cheaply, undermining original designers’ businesses.

This discourages innovation and makes fashion business more precarious.

Sustainability Costs

While Lagos Fashion Week champions sustainability, sustainable production often costs more—natural dyes, hand-crafted techniques, ethical labor practices, quality materials.

In a price-sensitive market, these costs challenge designers trying to compete with fast fashion’s cheap prices.

Yet these challenges haven’t stopped Lagos Fashion Week. They’ve sharpened its focus on ecosystem-building that addresses root problems rather than just showcasing clothes.

Looking Forward: The Next Chapter

With the Earthshot Prize win and £1 million in funding, Lagos Fashion Week enters its next phase with amplified resources and global visibility.

Scaling Woven Threads

The prize money will likely expand Woven Threads significantly:

• More designers supported in sustainability transitions
• Expanded research into circular fashion models for Africa
• Technology investments enabling sustainable production at scale
• Documentation and codification of traditional sustainable practices
• International knowledge-sharing with other fashion ecosystems

Pan-African Expansion

Akerele has hinted at “pan-African strategy” that could see Lagos Fashion Week’s model replicated or expanded across the continent:

• Regional fashion weeks in other African cities
• Continent-wide designer exchange programs
• Pan-African supply chain development
• Collective African fashion branding and marketing

Deepening International Integration

With Earthshot Prize visibility, expect:

• More international retailer partnerships
• Expanded presence at international fashion weeks
• Collaborations with major fashion brands
• Increased international media coverage
• Tourism boost as fashion becomes Lagos attraction

Educational Initiatives

Lagos Fashion Week may expand into formal education:

• Fashion business school or academy
• Apprenticeship programs in traditional crafts
• Sustainability certification programs
• Digital skills training for fashion businesses

Policy Advocacy

Armed with Earthshot Prize credibility, Lagos Fashion Week could influence policy:

• Government investment in textile manufacturing
• Import/export policy reforms supporting fashion
• Creative industry infrastructure development
• Fashion industry regulation and standards

The 2030 Vision

By 2030, Lagos Fashion Week could:

• Rival Paris, Milan, New York, and London as essential global fashion week
• Launch hundreds more designers to international success
• Position Africa as global leader in sustainable fashion
• Generate billions in economic activity and employ hundreds of thousands
• Fundamentally reshape how fashion production and consumption work globally

With Omoyemi Akerele’s track record, these aren’t fantasies. They’re achievable goals.

The Woman Behind the Platform

Who is Omoyemi Akerele beyond the achievements?

She’s married to Tokunbo Akerele, a Nigerian executive and board member. They have three daughters and live in Lagos. She balances intense professional commitments with family life, demonstrating that African women can build global-impact platforms while maintaining personal lives.

She serves on multiple prestigious advisory councils:

• Sustainable Markets Initiative (Africa Council)
• Mastercard Foundation (Nigeria)
• State of Fashion (Netherlands)
• Industrie Africa
• Jendaya

She’s been advisor to:

• Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
• Victoria & Albert Museum
• United Nations
• British Fashion Council
• Various international fashion and development organizations

In 2024, she was named climate leadership fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, further recognition of her thought leadership.

She speaks internationally at conferences including:

• Business of Fashion (BOF) Voices
• Global Fashion Agenda’s Copenhagen Fashion Summit
• Conde Nast International Luxury Conference
• Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT New York)
• African Development Bank Fashionomics

Despite all this, Akerele consistently centers community rather than personal glory. Her responses to achievements emphasize collective effort, designer talent, artisan skill, and community strength rather than individual genius.

She describes herself as “an incurable optimist”—perhaps the essential quality for someone who decided to build Africa’s fashion infrastructure from scratch.

The Lagos Fashion Week story matters far beyond fashion.

It’s a story about African agency and self-determination. Akerele didn’t wait for Western fashion capitals to “discover” African talent or for international NGOs to “develop” Nigerian fashion. She built infrastructure African fashion needed, centering African values and approaches.

It’s a story about how individuals can transform entire sectors. One woman’s vision, consistently pursued over 15 years, fundamentally changed African fashion’s trajectory and global positioning.

It’s a story about sustainability rooted in tradition, not Western guilt. Lagos Fashion Week demonstrates that African approaches to production, consumption, and community (often dismissed as “backwards”) actually offer solutions to global challenges.

It’s a story about building platforms that elevate others. Akerele could have pursued individual design fame. Instead, she built infrastructure that’s launched hundreds of designers, creating collective transformation.

It’s a story about the power of ecosystem thinking. Lagos Fashion Week succeeds because it doesn’t just host shows; it builds businesses, develops talent, creates markets, and shapes narratives.

It’s a story about long-term commitment winning. Fifteen years of consistent vision, gradual building, and steady improvement created cumulative impact that short-term projects never achieve.

It’s a story about Africa leading. Not catching up to Western standards, but leading in sustainability, community-centered business, and creative economy development.

It’s a story about one woman’s refusal to accept limitations, and how that refusal created possibilities for thousands.

From Lagos to the World

That photograph from 2011 (the modest first Lagos Fashion Week with a handful of designers and a simple runway) now seems prophetic rather than merely aspirational.

Omoyemi Akerele looked at Lagos (chaotic, vibrant, creative Lagos) and saw not obstacles but opportunities. She saw talent that needed platforms. She saw craft traditions that offered sustainability solutions. She saw community strength that could build industries. She saw global fashion’s future being written in African cities if only the infrastructure existed.

So she built it.

Fifteen years later, Lagos Fashion Week stands as Africa’s largest and most influential fashion platform. It’s launched brands to global recognition. It’s pioneered sustainability approaches global fashion now studies. It’s built business capacity for hundreds of designers. It’s created thousands of jobs. It’s preserved cultural heritage while pushing creative boundaries. It’s positioned Nigeria as a global fashion player.

And now, with the 2025 Earthshot Prize win, it’s been recognized as a world leader not just in fashion, but in environmental innovation and sustainable development, proof that African solutions to global challenges deserve the world’s attention.

From a modest runway in 2011 to the Earthshot Prize podium in 2025: this is what happens when vision meets persistence, when community meets commitment, when African creativity gets the infrastructure it deserves.

The story of Lagos Fashion Week is ultimately the story of what becomes possible when someone refuses to accept that African platforms must be inferior versions of Western models. When someone insists that African values (community, craft, sustainability, collective prosperity) aren’t obstacles to overcome but strengths to center.

Omoyemi Akerele looked at Lagos and saw a fashion capital. Fifteen years later, the world has finally caught up to her vision.

As Lagos Fashion Week enters its next chapter (armed with Earthshot Prize resources, global recognition, and 15 years of proven impact) the question is no longer whether African fashion can compete globally.

The question is: Can global fashion keep up with what Africa is building?

The Legacy Being Written

When future historians write about how fashion transitioned from a wasteful, exploitative industry to sustainable, community-centered practice, Lagos Fashion Week will occupy a central chapter.

When scholars examine how creative industries drove African economic development in the 21st century, Omoyemi Akerele’s name will feature prominently.

When students study how individuals can transform entire sectors through vision, persistence, and ecosystem thinking, Lagos Fashion Week will be the case study.

And when young Africans (particularly young African women) wonder whether they can build platforms that change industries, create opportunities for thousands, and earn global recognition, they’ll have Omoyemi Akerele’s example proving that yes, from Lagos, from Africa, from anywhere, you absolutely can.

Because if a lawyer who “didn’t see it coming” can build Africa’s fashion capital, launch hundreds of designers to international success, pioneer sustainable fashion practices, and win one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes (all from Lagos) then what’s stopping you from pursuing your own impossible dream?

The runway from Lagos stretches to the world. The doors have been flung open. The infrastructure exists. The blueprint has been proven.

And the next chapter of African fashion’s global story? That’s being written right now, by designers, entrepreneurs, and dreamers who understand what Lagos Fashion Week has demonstrated: that African creativity, properly supported, doesn’t just compete with the world, it leads it.

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Have you attended Lagos Fashion Week? Which African designers inspire you? How can fashion contribute to sustainable development across the continent? Share your thoughts and join the conversation about African fashion’s extraordinary future.

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