Lagos Fashion Week is back for its 15th edition, emphasizing a dedication to sustainable practices.

Lagos Fashion Week is back this week for its 15th edition. The five-day event is Africa’s largest fashion showcase, with dozens of Nigerian and African designers on the runways. Organisers are putting circularity and sustainability at the center this year, along with a push for African creators to earn from their own work.

Designers say the world is finally looking at African fashion, and they have a lot to catch up on. “I think what we’re experiencing now is just an overflow, because African creatives have not had a stage and speak for a very long time, and now this is not new,” says Cameroonian designer Queen Tumenta. “This is just an abundance of what has existed already through the years, and we’re just having an opportunity to share that. And because the spotlight was not on us before now, and now we have the spotlight, we just have a lot to say.”

African designs are showing up internationally, but the clothes in Lagos still read as African. This year’s theme is “Crafted,” a nod to the heritage and skill behind each piece. Pierre Mbengue, a Cameroonian culinary content creator, put it this way: “African culture in general, and Nigerian culture in particular, is highly extravagant, and this extravagance is reflected in Nigerian fashion. They have managed to blend the contemporary with the traditional, which is what makes it so bold, making it impossible to miss.”

Designers, sponsors and fashion fans now travel for the shows. Bilen Gaim, an Australian fashionista who has been to many fashion weeks at home, says Lagos was a different experience: “It delivered more than my expectation. It’s totally different from what I experience in, I’ve done a lot of Fashion Weeks in Australia. Totally different, and it’s very vibrant, very colourful, very... patterns and everything. Everything is so beautiful.”

Organisers also released a manifesto, the Blueprint for a Regenerative Fashion Future. It calls for a commercially viable industry and for “supply chains that regenerate the land, honour the makers, and keep value on the continent.” Whether the industry meets that bar is the question to watch after the five days end.