A tribute to Nigerian fashion: Adebayo Jolaoso’s Backstage Portrait of Lagos
In the fast-paced world of fashion, it's easy to overlook what happens behind the scenes. With his latest project “Eclectic: As We Are & A Little Bit More”, Nigerian photographer and visual artist Adebayo Jolaoso shifts the lens toward those more intimate spaces, offering a fresh perspective on Lagos’ thriving fashion culture.
The photography book Eclectic was presented during a three-day exhibition in Lagos (May 2–5), attracting over 300 guests including people from the fashion, art and culture industries. It captures six years of backstage life at Nigeria’s most prominent fashion events: Lagos Fashion Week, GTBank Fashion Weekend, and Arise Fashion Week. Through vibrant, emotionally charged imagery, Jolaoso documents the creative heartbeat of Nigerian fashion, far from the spotlight.
Rather than focusing on polished runway moments, his lens reveals the collaboration, tension, joy, and labor that fuel the industry. The result is both a visual archive and a tribute to the people—stylists, models, designers, assistants—who bring it all to life.
Jolaoso’s aesthetic is bold and unmistakable: high contrast, saturated colors, and dynamic compositions that reflect the electric energy of Lagos. His images don’t just portray fashion. They reflect the cultural ecosystem behind it, grounded in local context and lived experience.
More than a documentation of style, Eclectic is part of a broader movement in African fashion photography, one that challenges Western visual norms and asserts homegrown narratives. As Lagos continues to emerge as a global fashion capital, Jolaoso’s work helps shape how that story is told—and remembered.
In a powerful gesture of collaboration, the exhibition also featured visual artist Ayanfe Olarinde, who painted directly onto Jolaoso’s photographs. This dialogue between photography and painting echoed the spontaneity and layered creativity of the backstage world, reinforcing the Lagosian spirit of interdisciplinary art.
Ultimately, Eclectic invites viewers to reconsider what fashion photography can be. In Jolaoso’s world, the backstage becomes the main stage, and style is inseparable from the people and processes that create it.
