Designers Foundry; A Talent Hub for African Fashion Designers.

WHO THEY ARE: 
Designers Foundry is a pioneering new business incubator and talent hub for fashion designers in Nigeria and Africa. Their mission is to support the creative and business potential of emerging designers and act as a springboard for the success of their business.

Launched in 2012, it was created by Bukie Aje Lloyd in response to the need to support upcoming, aspiring designers in Nigeria and Africa in the difficult early stages of their career.

Each year, Designers Foundry will seek out promising emerging designers, offering them the chance to participate in a special design collaboration to launch a capsule collection.

Designers Foundry focuses on blending high quality fabrics with signature prints with a twist to help designers achieve an elegant yet edgy collection. These limited edition prints help to give designers' collections a signature look and make them stand out from the pack.

SHOWCASING: 

DF's designers feature in a special PR/marketing campaign to showcase their new collections via presentations in special 'showrooms' in Lagos.

Created exclusively for the designers, the special showcase is aimed at generating buzz for them and to provide a platform for them to create market visibility and establish connections with consumers.

MENTORING:
DF's mentoring programme takes designers through the next step beyond designing the collection to marketing it through creative and innovative ideas that help get the message through to their target groups.

This year's special guest is American filmmaker Nina Carr, who will produce a short fashion film for the Agu and Orange culture collections. The film will be developed into an online ad campaign for the collections.

With fashion brands increasingly using film to promote their labels, Nina will offer the designers a unique insight into and experience of this growing area of the industry and how to use film to communicate with the consumer.

2013 PROGRAMME:
This year, DF will support two exciting emerging designers - Agu and Orange Culture.

A model wearing a design by Orange Culture

Spotted during their MTN Lagos Fashion and Design Week S/S 2013 showcase, the designers were selected for their outstanding work, their creativity and desire to make their business a success.

Both designers will receive support to release 2 capsule collections in 2013 through the unique DF programme of mentoring, production, sales and marketing support.

DF's 2013 awardess will present their new A/W collections at a special fashion presentation taking place at Rhapsody's V.I Lagos on 21st May 2013.

The presentation will feature limited edition collections by Agu (womenswear) and Orange Culture (menswear) and Olekouture, an artistic twist on the 70s dress trend in collaboration with Blooms Boudoir.

This season's showcase theme explores the contemporary relationship between fashion and film, and will showcase new and interesting perspectives on fashion and how it is experienced and communicated.