Lagos Fashion Week has made history, taking home the 2025 Earthshot Prize, one of the world’s biggest environmental awards. The recognition celebrates its decade-long push to make fashion more sustainable, ethical, and community-driven while spotlighting African creativity on a global stage.
Founded by Omoyemi Akerele in 2011, Lagos Fashion Week started as a runway platform for African designers and has grown into a full-blown movement reshaping how fashion is created, consumed, and valued.
Over the years, it has become a rallying point for designers, artisans, and policy voices who believe fashion can be both stylish and sustainable.
And that vision has paid off.
In The Face of Fast Fashion
The global fashion industry has a serious waste problem, people are buying more clothes than ever and keeping them for half as long. But Lagos Fashion Week has been quietly working around that.
Every designer who shows on its runway is expected to prove that it’s commited to sustainable practices, from fabric sourcing and dyeing to fair labour and ethical production.
Through its Woven Threads initiative, the platform gives designers tools and resources to build circular systems that actually work, teaching them how to turn waste into art and process into purpose.
A Global Win
The Earthshot Prize, founded by Prince William in 2020, honours people and organisations creating solutions to repair the planet. Lagos Fashion Week’s win in the “Build a Waste-Free World” category puts Nigeria and Africa in the same conversation as global innovators driving climate solutions through creativity.
Omoyemi Akerele called it a victory for everyone behind the movement:
The recognition from The Earthshot Prize is not just about me or Lagos Fashion Week, but about the community of designers, artisans, and young people proving that African fashion has something powerful and lasting to offer the world.
For years, Africa has been framed as a victim of climate change. Lagos Fashion Week is flipping that narrative, showing that the continent isn’t just part of the solution; it’s leading it.
Through sustainability workshops, mentorship programmes, and partnerships with local craft communities, the platform is helping build an ecosystem that values heritage, reduces waste, and empowers the next generation of designers.
