Connectnigeria Articles

At the moment, fashion in Nigeria has reached a point of considerable success. In just a short while, we’ve seen various notable fashion entrepreneurs emerge with their distinct styles but still keeping their Afrocentric essence intact. In fact, novel trends and fads are now emerging to promote creativity and diversity in the industry and bring it the global recognition it truly deserves. Events such as the PlusSize Fashion Week, which was recently held to celebrate plus sized African women, are testaments to how dynamic the industry has become. The Lagos Fashion Week, another event which also held recently and brought various fashion-driven folks together to witness the blossoming fashion industry in Africa, is living proof that fashion in Africa is gradually exploding to become a global phenomenon.

As part of Connect Nigeria’s efforts to contribute to Nigeria’s industrial ecosystem, it organized a campaign called Connect Nigeria’s Top 100 SMEs Campaign, which saw a total number of 100 winners after months of voting. Amongst these winners are a good number of fashion brands which have undeniable potential. One of them, Laraville Clothing – a fabric and clothing brand for women – made it to the list at 76th place with a total of 115 votes. Laraville Clothing is a merchandiser of bespoke wears for women. Laraville Clothing was founded in 2016 by Esther Sholola to cater to the “upwardly mobile woman who loves to look beautiful”. A quick glance at the brand’s social media handle would give the observer insight into how much effort Esther puts into making Nigerian women beautiful through her creatively-styled wears. The passion and creativity are also apparent in the manner in which she displays the wears on her Instagram account and shows pictures of happy customers posing with the clothes which have been delivered to them.

The brand is indeed an eccentric one which pays attention to trends and everyday fashion occurrences. In Esther’s own words:

“The personality of the women we are designing for also plays a major role.”

Her expectation for the brand is for it to be “a global brand that properly represents the Nigerian fashion”. This is not far-fetched at all as a unique brand promoting Afrocentric styles like Laraville Clothing has all the promise to take Nigerian fashion to newer heights. You can find Laraville Clothing on Instagram here.