From late October to early November, Lagos becomes the cultural heartbeat of Africa, a city in full creative bloom. Across 18 consecutive days, design, fashion, photography and art take centre stage, transforming the city into a living showcase of modern African luxury and imagination.
Between 23 October and 9 November 2025, Lagos will host Design Week Lagos, the newly evolved LagosPhoto Biennale, Lagos Fashion Week, and the 10th edition of ART X Lagos forming a must-experience cultural season for culture connoisseurs.
Design Week Lagos (23–28 October)
Locations: Livespot Entertarium, Victoria Island, with activations across Lekki and Ikoyi
Design Week Lagos opens the season with a citywide celebration of creativity, craftsmanship and innovation. Victoria Island and Lekki transform into design districts alive with exhibitions, installations and conversations that merge tradition and technology.
At its core is Made by Design, Nigeria’s largest and most prestigious exhibition dedicated to furniture, finishes and interior design. Curated with intention, the showcase presents a refined selection of top-tier brands across bespoke cabinetry, premium furniture, lighting, flooring and accessories. Whether spotlighting products made in Nigeria or featuring globally acclaimed labels, Made by Design stands as the definitive destination for design professionals, developers and discerning homeowners seeking quality, innovation and craftsmanship.
The 2025 theme, Design Now: Nigeria’s Interior and Furniture Industry Unveiled, reflects a bold new movement in the country’s creative landscape, confident, forward-looking and unmistakably Nigerian. This edition celebrates the nation’s vibrant fusion of heritage and innovation, positioning Lagos as a hub of design excellence and a key player in shaping modern African lifestyles.
Beyond the exhibition, DWL invites guests into a world of private studio visits, curated dinners and design-led gatherings that reveal how Nigerian aesthetics are influencing global conversations in architecture and interiors.
LagosPhoto Biennale (25 October – 9 November)
Locations: Outdoor exhibitions and partner venues across Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lagos Island
The LagosPhoto Festival enters a new era in 2025 as it officially transitions to a biennale, expanding its scope and influence under the curatorship of Azu Nwagbogu, founder and director of the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF). Following the festival’s successful expansion into Benin in 2023, this transformation reflects LagosPhoto’s growing international stature and its commitment to creating deeper and more inclusive engagement with contemporary photography.
The 2025 edition, themed “Incarceration,” will explore the many faces of confinement, from physical imprisonment to intellectual, psychological and societal restriction. As Nwagbogu explains, “Incarceration can take many forms. It can be imposed by external forces or self-inflicted through our own mental models and social structures. Through this theme, we aim to challenge artists to uncover and liberate narratives that resonate with our times.”
The Biennale will feature newly commissioned works and multiple curations of incarceration perspectives, developed in collaboration with emerging curators across Africa who will work under Nwagbogu’s guidance. This approach reflects LagosPhoto’s continued dedication to nurturing new voices and shaping the future of visual storytelling on the continent.
In preparation for 2025, LagosPhoto has already begun a series of workshops, curatorial training sessions and collaboratory activities throughout 2024. These initiatives, centered on the theme of “Incarceration,” are designed to equip artists with tools and insights to develop original works for the Biennale. Five artists will be selected from these workshops to create new projects that will premiere at LagosPhoto 2025.
An open call for lens-based artists is also underway, inviting submissions from across Africa and the diaspora. Selected participants will receive mentorship and production support before presenting their completed works during the Biennale’s exhibition period across Lagos.
Through this expanded format, LagosPhoto Biennale 2025 will not only deliver a powerful artistic reflection on freedom and constraint but also reinforce photography’s role as a medium of liberation, innovation and critical dialogue.
Lagos Fashion Week (29 October – 2 November)
Location: Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island
As the city’s tempo shifts from design to couture, Lagos Fashion Week steps into the spotlight. The 2025 edition continues its evolution as a global platform for African creativity, blending runway presentation with sustainability and business innovation.
This year, expect a stronger emphasis on responsible fashion, with designers showcasing collections rooted in ethical sourcing and heritage craftsmanship. The celebrated Green Access initiative will return, spotlighting emerging designers who merge artistry with circular practices.
Lagos Fashion Week will also expand its trade and business programming, connecting African designers with global buyers, retailers and media. Beyond the runways, luxury showrooms, atelier appointments and rooftop gatherings will make Lagos the place to be for anyone invested in the future of African style.
ART X Lagos (6–9 November)
Location: Federal Palace, Victoria Island, with satellite exhibitions citywide
The season reaches its crescendo with ART X Lagos, celebrating its 10th anniversary as West Africa’s most important contemporary art fair. This milestone edition will reaffirm Lagos’s position at the heart of the global art conversation.
Alongside its signature collector previews and gallery showcases, the fair will expand into multidisciplinary territory, uniting art, music, film and performance under the ART X Live and ART X Cinema programs. The ART X Prize will once again spotlight emerging talent, offering residencies, funding and mentorships that accelerate careers beyond the continent.
As Lagos celebrates a decade of ART X, expect a heightened sense of occasion: exhibitions across the city, private collection tours, and gatherings that bring together artists, curators and collectors from every corner of the world.
For travellers joining from South Africa, Soul Traveller Tours and Capital Art will host a curated ART X experience including access to the Collectors’ Preview, studio visits, museum tours and intimate art dinners that reveal Lagos’s vibrant creative soul.
Across these 18 days, Lagos becomes a sensory playground where design shapes dialogue, fashion defines identity, photography questions freedom and art ties it all together. For the discerning traveller, this is more than a cultural calendar. It is a passage into Africa’s creative consciousness.
To experience Lagos during this season is to witness the continent’s creative renaissance in motion, one that is bold, intelligent and unapologetically African.
