By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The recent boom in the Nigerian leather industry has been attributed to increased competition, thanks to the younger designers, who have forced the established designers to rethink their leather offerings.
This was the view of the founder and director of Morin O Designs, Ms Morin Obaweya, when she had a chat with CNN Marketplace Africa recently in Lagos.
When it comes to leather, Nigeria is a major player in the global market and between 2010 and 2022, more than 40 million goat and sheep skins valued up to $800 million were exported annually to global fashion designers to make shoes, handbags, and other leather products accessories.
Now young homegrown Nigerian designers are competing for this supply and redefining the industry in the process.
“The approach of younger designers in the craft, they are very dynamic, they’re very edgy, very Avant Garde. It pushes us to always use technology to look at markets that are emerging, to look at trends that are emerging to be futuristic in looking at our designs and looking at the numbers determining where our markets are, where they’re going to be in the next few years, it kind of just keeps us on our toes,” Ms Obaweya said when the media platform visited Broll Mushin market to explore how this boom in the leather market is fuelled by Afrocentricity.
Nigeria’s National Centre for Technology Management recently said the country’s leather industry generates between $600 and $800 million annually and has the potential to generate $1 billion by 2025.
For Ms Obaweya, this is good for stakeholders, noting that her brand is also unlocking sustainable growth in the leather industry.
“We do informal mentorship, we plan a structured approach whereby we can set up something that a couple of those designers would have an inroad to see how Morin O Designs has gone through the years in the industry.
“We are affiliated with a couple of other initiators, for example, the Lagos Leather Fair, whereby there’s a coming together of both, emerging as well, as established designers in the industry.”
For the Creative Director of Khal Designs, Ms Victoria Ezenachukwu, “The demand for African-related items has improved my business because a lot of Nigerians in the diaspora do not have access to a lot of African stuff over there. Like shoes with isi agu or cowries. I get a lot of demands on that, and it has been my major sale point.”
“When I came into the leather industry, what I noticed was the generalized idea of what a Nigerian-made product should look like.
“I made up my mind that my products do not look like that. You shouldn’t see my bags, and I say, oh, it’s Nigerian made? I would love to change that perspective,” the chief executive of the House of Lareeyn, Delarin Osiberu, stated.