Lagos Fashion Week has announced CRAFTED as its theme for 2026, which was described as bringing heritage, innovation and circular futures into the same conversation about the people and processes behind African fashion. The season returns from October 28 to November 1 and is reported to open with a welcome party on October 28, followed by runway shows from October 29 to 31 at the LagosFW Tents at the Federal Palace Hotel in Victoria Island, and by offsite shows and special presentations on November 1.
Green Access, the festival’s flagship designer development programme, also returns for its eighth edition under the title Crafted in Practice. As part of the programme, the selected designers were said to take part in a two-week textile workshop at the Kokrobitey Institute in Ghana, where textile practitioners and artists from across Africa teach traditional techniques, contemporary practice and sustainable making, and they are also expected to work closely with artisan communities during a mentorship that covers research, circular design, craft, production and business development.
Each designer is then expected to arrive at Lagos Fashion Week with a capsule collection built around a hero piece that demonstrates craftsmanship innovation, together with a material sourcing plan, a sustainability impact statement and a documented creative process. The arrangement was described as one that asks designers to show how a collection was made as well as how it looks, which is rarely the focus of conversations around fashion week, where attention tends to settle on dates, sponsors and front rows.
Omoyemi Akerele, the founder and executive director of Lagos Fashion Week, was reported to have said that community has always been at the heart of African fashion and that Green Access brings that belief to life by connecting emerging designers with artisans, manufacturers and creative partners across the value chain, so that knowledge is preserved and opportunities are created. The programme, which began in 2018, was reported to count designers such as Cute Saint, Kadiju, Pepperrow and Y’wande among its alumni, and this year’s edition follows the launch of the festival’s Blueprint for a Regenerative Fashion Future Manifesto.
The CRAFTED theme was also the name of Woven Threads VII, the four-day Style House Files programme held in Lagos from April 9 to 12, which suggests that the focus on craft has been building across the year rather than arriving with the announcement. The season’s campaign, shot by photographer Daniel Obasi, was reported to draw on the African studio portrait, and the event is title-sponsored by Heineken with support from NIVEA, Africa Finance Corporation and Lush Hair.
