Beautiful new project documenting Nigerian style by Nina Manandhar

Date
18 November 2015

Nina Manandhar is the talented lady behind a remarkable book celebrating the UK fashion cultures in all its strange, joyful and often eccentric guises: What we Wore: A People’s Style History. More recently though she’s looked further afield to Nigeria, making some beautiful work documenting a trip she took to Lagos last month. She visited the area for the British Council’s Fashion DNA: Image-Makers project, where she was shooting the work of emerging Nigerian fashion designers.

“I also wanted to get a glimpse of Lagotian style as much as I could during my visit, so I took [pictures of] the cities shopping malls, streets and weddings,” she tells us. “Style is always the first thing I’m drawn to document when I visit a new place, it’s a route in to the people.”

For Nina, the undisputed highlight of her trip was being invited to a Nigerian wedding – a “very glamorous affair, and the perfect place to observe dress and Lagos looks.” She says: “The style was really flamboyant, in contrast to the buildings I shot –  lots of Brutalist style public buildings and architecture. 

“Being in Lagos helped me get more of a deeper understanding of how young people really are using fashion as a tool for building and creating new networks and enterprises for themselves in emerging west African fashion economies and youth markets. I also did a project in Dakar, Senegal last year so its interesting to see the similarities and differences.”

Nina will be speaking at our collecting-themed Nicer Tuesdays on 24 November.

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Above
Left

Nina Manandhar: Lagos

Share Article

About the Author

Emily Gosling

Emily joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in the summer of 2014 after four years at Design Week. She is particularly interested in graphic design, branding and music. After working It's Nice That as both Online Editor and Deputy Editor, Emily left the company in 2016.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.