Style House Files is Celebrating Africa’s Circular Fashion Future

Style House Files (SHF) is pleased to announce the seventh edition of Woven Threads, themed CRAFTED. Taking place from 9th to 12th April 2026 at 274A Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, this year’s edition will convene designers, innovators, and industry stakeholders to advance circularity, sustainability, and responsible production across Africa’s fashion and textile value chains.

Woven Threads is one of two flagship platforms produced by Style House Files, alongside Lagos Fashion Week, through which Style House Files drives innovation, sustainability, and growth across Africa’s fashion industry.

Building on the success of the 2025 cross-continental dialogues in London and Lagos, CRAFTED is an immersive experience that celebrates Africa’s deep heritage of craftsmanship while spotlighting contemporary circular design, material innovation, and systems-led thinking shaping the future of fashion on the continent.

CRAFTED explores the idea that sustainability in Africa is not a new invention; it is a lived practice, embedded in craft traditions, material intelligence, community-based production, and adaptive reuse. The activation positions Africa not only as a source of cultural inspiration but as a site of knowledge, innovation, and solutions, where ancestral practices and science-backed ideas converge to respond to global sustainability challenges.

Woven Threads VII will also feature programming developed in partnership with The Earthshot Prize, bringing together pioneering voices from across the continent to advance systems-led thinking and catalyse meaningful action towards a more sustainable African fashion future.

“Woven Threads has always believed that Africa’s most powerful sustainability ideas are already here, living in our craft traditions, our material knowledge, our communities. CRAFTED is an invitation to see that clearly, and to build from it. This year, we are not just celebrating heritage; we are demonstrating that it is the blueprint for the future of fashion.” — Omoyemi Akerele, Founder, Lagos Fashion Week & Style House Files.

About Woven Threads VII 

Woven Threads VII will unfold as a curated, design-led environment comprising four interconnected components. An Exhibition will showcase the continent’s finest circular designers and innovators.

A Knowledge Exchange will facilitate in-depth dialogues on material intelligence and systems-led thinking. And The Showcase will position Africa as a site of knowledge and solutions where traditional practices and modern ideas converge.

Crafted Talk & Programme

At the heart of the activation is a rich programme of digital presentations, talks, and panels anchoring the intellectual and cultural ambition of this year’s edition.

Woven Threads VII will open on 9th April with a series of digital presentations across Lagos Fashion Week’s platforms, exploring craft practices and circular approaches to design through reconstruction, adaptation, and thoughtful making.

On 10th April, Woven Threads VII will host the official launch of Project Irapada — Lagos Fashion Week’s first-ever textile waste mapping initiative, developed in partnership with LAWMA and the Bestseller Foundation.

Project Irapada is the first citywide study to uncover the volume, flow, and causes of textile waste in Lagos, providing a credible, data-backed baseline for policymakers, brands, innovators, and communities working towards circular solutions. Its launch at Woven Threads VII marks the beginning of a broader effort to build a circular fashion ecosystem in Lagos. This will be followed by the private opening of the CRAFTED Exhibition, a curated showcase of the continent’s finest circular designers and innovators.

The public programme runs from 10th to 12th April, with the CRAFTED Exhibition welcoming visitors from 10 am. Each afternoon, from 12 pm to 3 pm, CRAFTED Talks will bring together practitioners, innovators, and thinkers for conversations traversing circular design, material futures, craft education, and waste justice.

Curator and researcher Sunny Dolat will take part in a Fireside Chat, moderated by Adaeze Oguzie, offering an intimate look into the ideas and provocations shaping this year’s CRAFTED edition.

A headline panel, The African Fashion Compact: Shared Principles for a Responsible Future, developed in partnership with The Earthshot Prize, will bring together Woven Threads founder Omoyemi Akerele, Simone Smit, Earthshot Prize Director of Africa, Adama Paris of Dakar Fashion Week, Mahlet Teklemariam of Hub of Africa Fashion Week, Liz Ricketts of The OR Foundation, Jackie May of TWYG, Renee Neblett of Kokrobitey Institute, and NEST co-founder and Woven Threads curator, Sunny Dolat. The session will convene fashion founders and ecosystem leaders to define shared principles for circularity and responsible production across Africa’s fashion landscape.

CRAFTED x The Makers Camp will be a panel conversation moderated by Ugonna Orah, featuring Berni Yates of Central Saint Martins and Pettre Taylor.

Material Futures will convene circular practitioners for a conversation on exploring how environmental waste and overlooked materials can be transformed into new forms of value through design, experimentation, and material innovation.

Each evening, from 6 pm to 9 pm, designer presentations will close out the day’s programme.

Presentation Designers & Exhibitors

CRAFTED will present work from designers, each selected for their commitment to circular practice, material innovation, and craft-rooted design. The designers include  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, The OR Foundation (designers), Nakoi, 1967, Africa Collect Textiles, Lilabare, Studio Namnyak, and IGC Fashion.

Photo: stylehousefiles