Postcard from Lagos Design Week 2025

There was something absolutely different about this year’s edition of Design Week Lagos. Perhaps it was because the festival happened at two separate locations in the city.

The first, at the usual location at Livespot Entertarium, which has been home to the festival for the past six years and has carried the familiar hum of innovation and community, where designers, makers, and collectors converged under one creative roof. The second, held at the newly opened Nahous cultural hub at the Federal Palace, introduced a fresh rhythm to this experience. It housed the regular designer exhibit and innovation space where countless designers showcase their work for the season. But together, the dual venues reflected the expanding scope of Nigerian design, one that goes beyond the present and confidently stretches to the future.

This year, the festival also witnessed the largest of crowds, expanding the conversation about the growing nature of the design space and also placing Lagos it as one of the design week fairs to watch globally.

Like previous editions, the design exhibition was riveting and full of discovery. Each installation carried its own pulse, revealing how Nigerian and African designers continue to expand the language of form, texture, and material. From conceptual furniture and lighting to textile reinterpretations and architectural experiments, here are what stood out during this year’s festival.

Lisa Folawiyo’s The Archive Reimagined

It was great to witness prominent Nigerian fashion designer Lisa Folawiyo extend her mastery of print and pattern beyond the runway with a bespoke carpet that brings her iconic textile language into the world of interiors. ‘The Archive Reimagined’ translates the playfulness and vibrancy of her fashion into form and function, showing how motifs once worn can now be lived with. The piece feels alive in its composition, the geometry and texture is also not left out of the conversation. The color palette is enigmatic yet bold, commanding attention in the exhibition space and inviting viewers to step closer. But this is also a way for Folawiyo to show that fashion is not confined to the body but can spill beautifully into the spaces we inhabit and she perfectly rendered so in the archive reimagined.

TY Bello’s The Wind Blows Where It Listed

For more than twenty years, photographer and music icon TY Bello has studied light as if it were scripture, tracing its emotion, and rhythm. In ‘The Wind Blows Where It Listed’, she turns her attention to fabric, using it as a vessel for light’s many moods. The design unfolds like meditations making the ordinary seem like a sculptural sacred tent.

Confidence Onyema’s Uzo Collection

Presenting the ‘Uzo Collection’ which means “path.” Confidence Onyema looks to movement, connection, and reflection through a series of sculptural furniture pieces. At the center of the collection is ‘Meander’, a coffee table shaped like a winding path lined by tree-like forms. It represents the journey through life. Another piece, ‘To Hold’, is a side table inspired by the form of a key and keyhole. She calls it her tool of stillness and about the moment of pause before transition, ‘Npanaka’ is from a previous collection inspired by lamp light. A Candle holder and sconces she explores to illustrate how sunlight marks time and creates rhythm. “When the sun moves, it tells time through shadow,” she says. “I wanted to explore that relationship between light, time, and location.”

Ronke Ladipo’s From Ashes

Ronke Ladipo presented one of the fair’s most striking installations, a conceptual furniture crafted in the form of oversized cigarettes, the chair, side table, and storage box transforming familiar symbols of consumption and decay into objects of reflection. The chair’s stacked cylindrical backrest resembles a pack of cigarettes in various stages of burn, crisp white at the base fading into darkened ash at the top, while metallic gold accents mimic foil wraps. The table and storage unit extend the metaphor, each piece sculpted to resemble a smoldering cigarette, complete with ashen textures and the bold text from Ashes design

Juliet Olaipekun’s the Fossil Collection

Juliet Olaipekun is another fashion designer who stunned festival attendees. With the ‘Fossil Collection’, the multidisciplinary artist and founder of ILE ILE blurred the line between heritage and modernity. She drew from Yoruba cosmology and natural materials, crafting sculptural furniture that is both ancient and alive. One of the exhibits in her booth was titled ‘skeletor’ and is a very sculptural chair shaped like the cerebral of a creature with many legs and with a curve with the seemingness of a crescent moon. But this is also Olanipekun's conscious way of describing the home as a living organism, one that carries stories, spirits, and the quiet strength of those who came before. It’s contemporary African design with a pulse, deeply personal yet universally resonant.

Joan Eric-Udorie's Bantu

Bantu is a collectible stool that transforms ebonised wood into a sculptural study of balance, rhythm, and flow. Joan Eric-Udorie wanted to draw inspiration from African vernacular architecture and the intricate geometry of cornrow braids, translating these patterns into organic, fluid forms. Rather than replicate tradition, she distills its essence, reinterpreting woven and carved motifs as continuous curves that feel almost alive. The deep, warm tones of the wood create a sense of both tension and harmony, while the stool’s seemingly weightless silhouette hovers between function and art.

Yasir Hakeem Popoola’s Ite Akinkanju (Table of the Brave)

Popoola’s ‘Table of the Brave’ embodies Yoruba wisdom and sustainable intent. Crafted with a sense of balance akin to the proverb of the three-legged stool, it reflects harmony as strength. Guided by BYMARP’s ethos of thoughtful material use, the design honors bravery not as defiance, but as care for craft, for culture, and for what endures.

Abiola Diana Makinde’s Ijoko Ore, Model 02

Dedicated to sisterhood, the ‘Ijoko Ore’ refers to the quiet intimacy, strength, and tenderness that bind women together. The piece blends industrial design principles with artistic expression to form a sculptural yet functional object that can serve as a seat, a center table, or simply a statement piece that anchors a space. Beyond its physical form, the work extends Makinde’s ongoing exploration of kinship and shared rituals. Drawing on motifs found in hairstyling patterns, fabric design, and communal gathering, it reflects on the vulnerability and connection that come from sitting together in conversation.