The Nigerian online space is buzzing with entries from the Design Fashion Africa Online Challenge and everyone seems to be wowed. Starting September 3, upcoming fashion designers in Lagos have been sending in a lot of bold designs as their applications to be part of the DFA finalists who will showcase alongside other big names in the African fashion scene and win a business grant.
The Design Fashion Africa initiative which recently launched in Lagos, has a simple goal of bringing more young designers into the limelight, and helping them to better their craft and begin to commercialize it.
To register for the online fashion challenge, each upcoming designer is expected to submit a sketch of an outfit, with a short description of the concept behind the design to the online registration portal on the DFA website. Each sketch is also to be uploaded on either Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag “#df_africa2019”. A simple click on the hashtag currently will display an array of beautiful designs already submitted from across the country.
At the launch event for DFA, Idia Aisien, one of the brains behind the initiative expressed their commitment to seeing more young people excel in the fashion space, as their success will definitely have an effect on the general Nigerian economy, given the potential the fashion and larger creative industries hold in the country.
The winner of the online challenge will be awarded a business grant of 1 million naira to help them set up their own fashion brand, and will also get the opportunity to walk the runway at the grand finale with the likes of established fashion designers like Adama Paris from Senegal, Aisha Ayensu Christie Brown from Ghana, John Keveke from Kenya and Beryl Couture from Uganda. Before then, they will also be receiving training from renowned fashion designers during the DFA Boot Camp, alongside 9 others who will be selected as finalists.
The selection process will be a live screening with celebrity judges, where each shortlisted contestants will be tested majorly based on their creativity.
For the grand finale, the DFA team has a concert-like fashion show planned for October 5 at Eko Hotels, Lagos. Along with the big names expected to showcase on the runway, top music artistes like Praiz, Tiwa Savage, Johnny Drille and Burna Boy are also expected to perform on that day. The DFA initiative is sponsored by a number of big brands including Heineken, Access Bank and Ethopian Airways.
