From a Lagos launch in 2005 to international runways, the house has grown without surrendering its point of view.
01
An unexpected foundation
Before fashion became the centre of her professional life, Lanre Da Silva Ajayi studied business administration at Coventry University and completed a master’s degree in finance at the University of Leicester. That education offered a practical foundation for the demands of building an independent label.
She launched her namesake house in Lagos in 2005, creating couture and ready-to-wear alongside jewellery and hair accessories. From the beginning, the work joined commercial discipline to an instinct for expressive, highly finished clothes.
02
Lagos to the world
The label’s international path has included fashion events in London, South Africa, New York, Lagos and Milan. In 2012, Da Silva participated in the United Nations Fashion Development Project and appeared in L’Uomo Vogue’s “Re-branding Africa” issue. Her work was later stocked through international platforms including Yoox.
The 2014 “Rock Delight” collection, presented at Vogue Talents in Milan, drew inspiration from Olumo Rock in Nigeria. It demonstrated a recurring house instinct: taking a specific cultural or visual reference and translating it through material, silhouette and surface rather than treating it literally.
03
A house that keeps moving
Two decades bring an archive, but an archive is useful only when it remains alive. Signatures return in altered proportions. Familiar materials meet new techniques. A younger audience encounters the work without needing to have seen every chapter that came before.
The continuity lies in confidence: clothes with a strong sense of occasion, an affection for history and a belief that African fashion belongs naturally within a global conversation.
