Lagos Design Week: what we took away
Four days, two hundred exhibitors, and one conviction: African design has stopped asking permission.
The striking figure: 62% of exhibitors were under thirty-five. The next generation is not coming — it is already here.
Three clear trends
Structural weaving returns. No longer merely decorative: woven partitions, balustrades, ceilings. The technique moves out of textiles and into the building fabric.
Modular furniture. Young studios design for 40 m² apartments, not villas. That is new, and healthy.
Traceability as an argument. Several brands now display the exact origin of each raw material, in the manner of the food sector.
What is still missing
Distribution. A Kano studio making remarkable pieces still has no simple way to sell them in Abidjan. African design does not have a creation problem; it has a logistics problem.
We are going back next year — this time as exhibitors.
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