Fashion Finest Africa Examines the Future of Fashion   

Mary Nnah

This year, the 5th edition of the Fashion Finest Epic Show held at the Balmoral Convention Center, Victoria Island, Lagos, explored the theme, “Fashion for the Future”.

Fashions Finest Africa is a platform that assembles the very best fashion industry talents in Africa to expose and showcase their craft, creativity and uniqueness.

The Chief Executive Officer of Fashions Finest Africa, Sola Oyebade, who emphasised that this year’s event was all about sustainability, noted, “One of the things we are very keen on at Fashions Finest Africa is promoting new and emerging designers – people that don’t have that experienced to participate in the big shows and compete with some of the top designers out there. It is about coming to us, meeting new and experienced people, learning from them and being able to be given that inspiration to thrive and that courage to go forward and set up your own business.”

This year’s Epic Show was centred around sustainability in the fashion industry. The aim was not only to celebrate new and emerging fashion entrepreneurs in the sustainable fashion space but also to encourage other designers to not just be sustainable brands but to build sustainable fashion businesses.

As such, Fashion Finest introduced a special competition this year called ‘Design For The Future (D4DF)’, which aimed to spotlight incredible new designers in the fashion industry who are doing amazing things with sustainable fashion. After a fierce competition with over 80 entries, emerged 10 finalists who had the opportunity to showcase their designs during the Epic Show Runway.

There was also the Business of Fashion Conference, which took an in-depth approach to enlightening new and emerging fashion creatives. With the theme ‘Fashion for the Future’, the conference featured outstanding panellists, such as internationally acclaimed stylist Teni Oluwo, CEO of Style Territory, fashion influencer and doctor Akin Faminu, and Sub-Saharan Africa’s tallest model, Bakare Mubarak as well as  Toyin Lawani, a designer and CEO of Tiannah’s Place, discussing the topic: “Positioning Your Brand for the Global Market”.

Stressing further on the theme for this year, Oyebade said, “We understand that people have been doing fashion for a while but they are not looking ahead. They are not looking at what are the trends.”

“How can they take their business from it being the low level to being very high? That is why we brought somebody like Toyin Lawani, a designer and CEO of Tiannah’s Place. Because she has taken it from zero to being somewhere that is international. So we are looking at people like her to give people that inspiration.”  

He said that the theme, “Fashion for the Future”, emphasised the fact that,  fashion is always changing, noting, “A lot of you are wearing stuff now and you think you are the first people you ever dress like that. But do you know fashion has always been recycled? There is nothing that you are wearing now that somebody did not wear some years back. So, we are looking at what fashion will be like in the future.”

“CNN said about two or three years ago that fashion would be the biggest income earner in Nigeria. It will earn more money than oil, agriculture, and any other form of entertainment combined. That is how big fashion is going to be.”

He disclosed that the team is putting a lot of effort into helping people strategies for the future. “We have our design for a fashion competition to bring people that are recycling and there is a cash price for them.”