Fashion Design as Cultural Expression: Afrocentric Aesthetics in Lagos Fashion Week

Lagos Fashion Week has emerged as one of Africa's most significant platforms for fashion design, showcasing the creative output of Nigerian designers whose work increasingly engages with Afrocentric aesthetics and African cultural identity as explicit conceptual frameworks. This study examines the expression of Afrocentric aesthetics in fashion collections presented at Lagos Fashion Week between 2021 and 2023, analysing design vocabulary, material choices, cultural references, and the discourse surrounding African identity in the collections. A content analysis methodology is applied to 80 documented runway looks from fifteen Nigerian designers, coding for the use of indigenous textiles, pattern motifs derived from cultural traditions, garment silhouettes referencing traditional attire, and colour schemes with cultural significance. Supplementary interviews are conducted with 8 participating designers and 5 fashion critics. The theoretical framework draws on Afrocentrism as an aesthetic and political philosophy, the fashion studies literature on cultural nationalism in design, and the postcolonial cultural production scholarship. The study examines whether Afrocentric aesthetics at Lagos Fashion Week are functioning as genuine cultural engagement or as market positioning strategies that commodify African cultural symbols for global fashion consumption. Recent literature has debated the authenticity politics of African fashion at international events. Findings are intended for fashion design educators, cultural critics, and the Lagos Fashion Week organisational team on deepening the cultural and intellectual dimensions of the platform. Keywords: Afrocentric aesthetics, Lagos Fashion Week, fashion design, cultural identity, African fashion