Style House Files (SHF) concluded the seventh edition of Woven Threads, themed CRAFTED, following a four-day programme held from 9th to 12th April 2026 in Lagos.
Presented as one of Style House Files’ flagship platforms alongside Lagos Fashion Week, this year’s edition brought together designers, thinkers, and cultural leaders to examine craftsmanship as both heritage and a future-facing system.
Speaking about the event, Omoyemi Akerele, the founder of Style House Files and Lagos Fashion Week said, “Long before sustainability became a global imperative, it was already embedded in the way we live, the way we create, and the way we coexist across the continent. Our craftsmanship is not simply aesthetic, it is memory, it is science, it is survival, and it is care.”
This was followed by CRAFTED Talks: In Conversation with Sunny Dolat, a fireside discussion featuring Adaeze Oguzie, Project Director of Style House Files and Lagos Fashion Week, in conversation with guest curator Sunny Dolat, which explored the tensions between heritage, contemporary making, and the evolving systems shaping African fashion today.
The conversation then extended into the exhibition through a curatorial walk-through led by Dolat, whose framing of CRAFTED translated these ideas into a spatial experience built around the themes of labour, heritage, and reimagined systems.
Reflecting on the exhibition’s opening section, Dolat remarked that “the value of skill questions the value of knowledge,” inviting guests to consider the structures required for practices such as weaving, textile production, woodwork, and dyeing to be nourished, supported, and sustained in the present day.
Across the walkthrough, Dolat foregrounded the labour and communities behind fashion production, while exploring how designers across the continent are engaging heritage through preservation, reinterpretation, and systems-led experimentation. His curatorial lens placed equal emphasis on makers, process, and the future of material recovery and reuse.
A major highlight of the day was the official launch of Project Irapada, the textile waste mapping initiative developed by Style House Files to advance waste mapping and circular systems thinking, marking an important step towards building a data led circular fashion ecosystem in Lagos.
Woven Threads VII’s conversations this year centred on a clear industry question: what systems must be built for African fashion to remain both culturally grounded and commercially sustainable?
During The African Fashion Compact x The Earthshot Prize, speakers including Omoyemi Akerele, Mahlet Teklemariam, Adama Ndiaye, Sunny Dolat, Renee Neblett, Jackie May, Simone Smit, and Sammy Oteng explored the tension between growth and responsibility.
Discussions focused on building stronger intra-African fashion systems, creating viable businesses, and rethinking consumption patterns in response to the increasing environmental impact of fashion.
Across the four-day programme, Woven Threads VII featured presentations, exhibitions, and activations from participating designers and practitioners including Pettre Taylor, ESO by Liman, Ajanee, Pepperrow, OSHOBOR, Cute Saint, Hertunba, This Is Us, Cynthia Abila, Maliko, NYA, Ywande, Emmy Kasbit, Eki Kere, Tuntunre, Dunsin Crafts, Yoshita, Mitimeth, Nkwo, Wote KI, Nakoi, 1967, Africa Collect Textiles, Lilabare, Studio Namnyak, IGC Fashion, and The OR Foundation.
