Lagos Space Programme

Lagos Space Programme is a multidisciplinary atelier that simultaneously roots itself in Yoruba traditions and endeavours toward reimagined futures. Adeju Thompson has taken this practice from Nigeria to the global stage, challenging long-held misconceptions about African design and identity.

Lagos Space Programme Project 7: ‘Post-Adire’. Photography by Adedamola Odetara. Photo available via Dazed. ©All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

Lagos Space Programme is guided by the idea that the future cannot be constructed without first honoring the past. Born and raised in Lagos and pursuing a fashion education in the U.K., founder Adeju Thompson’s own identity and creative vision act as the driver. As a result, Thompson’s projects incorporate Yoruba traditional clothing practices and storytelling into fashion designs aimed at challenging Western-influenced constructs of gender and craftsmanship.

The Yoruba people are native to West Africa, specifically Nigeria and Republic of Benin, and are known for a robust textile history dating back to pre-colonial times. Traditional Yoruba clothing is intricately designed and lavish with cultural heritage and symbolic meaning, as bodily adornment in Yoruba textile culture is both aesthetic and spiritual. Like the art of Adire, for example, a resist-dyeing process that produces indigo-dyed textiles, these techniques have produced clothing as an intrinsic element of storytelling, self decoration, and protection for centuries. 

All of the studio’s projects so far have embodied this mission of deconstructing tradition and reconstructing it with parallel, contemporary visions. ‘Cloth as a Queer Archive,’ is the brand’s 8th project and is a stunning demonstration of Yoruba textile history through a lens of modern subcultures. In Thompson’s words: “The collection is also a study of minimalism from an African point of view. In the popular imagination, the African aesthetic is colorful, robust, and sometimes dynamic, in contrast to a ‘cleaner,’ pared-down European style,” they add. 

The result is a sublime combination of storytelling through textiles, becoming multiple sides of the same coin: of tradition and future, of African and queer expression. Nigerian visual artist Isabel Okoro brought movement to the collection, contributing with a film titled ‘come to me, i’m already here’ in which the project’s theme of queer semiotics and Yoruba heritage is displayed in action. 

Photos from Lagos Space Programme’s Project 8: ‘Cloth as a Queer Archive.’ Available via Lagos Space Programme. ©All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

With Lagos Space Programme, Thompson wants to confront and decolonize Westernized constructs of African design, queerness, and overall identity. Thus, a nonbinary luxury design studio with a focus on slow fashion. Every element of this brand and designer ethos seeks to declare independence from the heavily Western-influenced and regimented high fashion world. There then comes a push and pull, however, as the same fashion world that can compartmentalize ideologies can open pathways to global recognition. That being said, Lagos Space Programme is already there and working to strike that very balance. Having won the International Woolmark prize in 2023 and reaching the semifinals of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers, the brand is on the international fashion radar. 

Despite such international recognition, Thompson and Lagos Space Programme face the same challenges many African designers do when it comes to the moves required for a brand to scale internationally. Following the Woolmark prize win, Thompson made the decision to step out of Paris’ June schedule of last year in favor of shows in Lagos and Cape Town. With growing fashion design comes the logistics and financial challenges of orchestrating a show in one of fashion’s main capitals as well as those of wholesale partners. 

International industry recognition, while increasing towards African designers, is not enough to counteract the difficult reality of how to transition from a designer to the owner of a fashion business. Thompson and other African designers shoulder a great deal of responsibility between fighting for overdue space, managing their brands, and embodying ideals that often contradict Western-dominated fashion conventions. Exacerbating these obstacles is a limited perception of African identities, which can force designers to choose between packaging their ideas in a way that accommodates Western consumers or in a way that honors the afrofuturism it intends. 

Knowing these challenges, we can appreciate what it took for Thompson and Lagos Space Programme to make their return to Paris for the AW25 season this month. They put forth a collection titled “Rock & Roll Consciousness” which was inspired by Thompson’s own love of the genre and accompanied by a live performance from a rock group by the name of Spanish Horses. Standouts from the collection included their popular Yoruba style wide leg pants and a robe coat made from traditional Adire cloth. In a move likely motivated by that industry push-and-pull, the collection also contains pieces like printed tees and hoodies that maintain Thompson’s Nigerian identity, albeit with a subtlety that could fare well with international customers.  

Lagos Space Programme’s AW25 Collection. Available via Lagos Space Programme. ©All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.

Despite successfully putting collections on show on the global stage, it would be nothing short of a disservice to limit Adeju Thompson’s creative vision to clothing. Or to limit Thompson as an individual to one persona. Lagos Space Programme is not a brand, but a fashion and art practice working to challenge conventions and forge collaborations. The label is not even 10 years old and has already put forth numerous projects that confront misconceptions about African fashion, design, and identity. Yoruba history is both honored and reimagined through Thompson’s contemporary, queer lens, offering a convergence between past, present, and future. This future, as seen by one as gifted as Thompson is beautifully crafted and imaginative, yet informed by centuries of tradition. Put simply, there is a stunning world to be found upon diving into Lagos Space Programme.