PARIS.- Design Week Lagos presents Athanasius Johnson, Adaora Enwonwu, Emma Emodi, Oluwakayinsade Ademuson, Joan Eric-Udorie, Myles Igwebuike and Richard Aina at
Paris Design Week from 10-19 September, 2026. Together, the seven selected designers represent a new generation of designers whose work spans furniture, lighting, sculpture and collectible design, reimagining African craftsmanship, material innovation and cultural heritage through contemporary design.
Paris Design Week brings together 500 participants across 320 venues – including showrooms, galleries, studios, museums, and exceptional locations – in the heart of Paris’s four iconic design districts. It’s the go-to event for all design enthusiasts, whether amateurs or professionals.
“Our global tours are about creating pathways for African designers beyond exhibition. We want to place their work in front of galleries, manufacturers, brands, collectors and institutions, creating opportunities for collaboration, production, representation and access to new markets.
Paris Design Week is an important part of that journey. We are particularly excited that this year we are beginning to see those conversations translate into tangible outcomes, including our first designer–manufacturer collaborations with Ombr Italian Lighting Manufacturer featuring work by Athanasius Johnson (Apo Lamp) and Adaora Enwonwu (Anyanwu Lamp), alongside a special lighting feature by James Brendan Udom (Okkyo lamp ). For us, this is what Design Week Lagos is ultimately about: taking exceptional African design from visibility to opportunity, and from making to market.” -- Titi Ogufere, Founder, Africa Design Network & Design Week Lagos
Design Week Lagos will exhibit in Paris Design Week Factory, which unites more than 150 emerging designers across four galleries. Co-curated by Jean-Baptiste Durand and Simon Geringer, Paris Design Week Factory takes over 116 rue de Turenne and Espace Commines with a clear intention: to showcase a new generation of emerging designers through an approach that breaks free from traditional categories.
Highlights of the Design Week Lagos presentation at Paris Design Week include; Bantu Stool by Joan Eric-Udorie, Ara by Emma Emodi, ISP LOW TABLE by Richard Aina and ỌCHE by Myles Igwebuike.
Paris Design Week Factory co-curators Durand and Geringer have conceived a journey where aesthetics, innovation, and technical mastery intersect, guiding each designer from the selection of the works to the exhibition design. Their approach reflects a sensitive and demanding vision of contemporary design, where every object finds its place within an almost museum-like dialogue.
Jean-Baptiste Durand and Simon Geringer comment: “The DNA of this edition lies in a deliberate friction—breaking free from labels!” This guiding principle runs throughout the exhibition, where disciplines converge, categories dissolve, and boundaries shift. Here, practices that are still young less than five years old but already refined, distinctive, and sometimes radical, come together without hierarchy. Another definition of the design of tomorrow.”
Design Week Lagos founded by Titi Ogufere builds on a year of international activity through All Roads Lead to Lagos, the festival’s global programme dedicated to championing emerging African design and creating meaningful pathways between African creative talent and the international design community.
The programme reflects a simple but powerful premise: African design belongs in the global conversation, and Lagos is a vital destination within it.
In April, Design Week Lagos brought All Roads Lead to Lagos to Milan, presenting the work of a new generation of African designers as part of the city’s internationally recognised design calendar. The Milan presentation featured Richard A. Aina, Olaoluwa AJ Durotoye, Nicole Adaora Enwonwu, Myles Igwebuike, Athanasius Johnson, Odema Acacia Saleh and Joan Eric Udorie, offering international audiences an opportunity to encounter diverse approaches to material, craft, technology, culture and contemporary African identity.
The programme now continues to Paris in September, extending the conversation into another major global design capital before returning to Lagos in October for the 2026 edition of Design Week Lagos.
Rather than positioning these international presentations as standalone showcases, All Roads Lead to Lagos forms part of Design Week Lagos’ broader commitment to talent discovery, international visibility and market access. The programme creates opportunities for emerging designers to connect with curators, cultural institutions, media, brands, industry leaders and new audiences, while creating a platform through which African design can be experienced on its own terms.
The journey from Milan to Paris and ultimately Lagos also speaks to the festival’s wider vision for African design: not as a category that exists at the margins of global design, but as a source of ideas, materials, innovation and cultural knowledge capable of shaping the future of the industry.
As the international programme culminates in Lagos this October, these global conversations return to the city at the heart of Design Week Lagos. Here, designers, creatives, industry professionals, institutions and audiences will come together under the 2026 theme, “Making A New Africa: From Material to Market”, exploring how Africa’s wealth of materials, knowledge and creative talent can be transformed into globally competitive products, industries and opportunities.
From Milan, through Paris, and back to Lagos, All Roads Lead to Lagos is more than a journey, it is a growing network connecting African design to the world, and the world back to Africa.
All Roads Lead to Lagos is a global celebration of an exciting new generation of African designers redefining contemporary design through cultural storytelling, craftsmanship and innovation.
The 2026 edition of Paris Design Week follows a year of international activity through All Roads Lead to Lagos, Design Week Lagos’s global programme supporting the development and international presentation of emerging African design. In Milan, Design Week Lagos presented work by a new generation of designers including Richard A. Aina, Olaoluwa AJ Durotoye, Nicole Adaora Enwonwu, Myles Igwebuike, Athanasius Johnson, Odema Acacia Saleh and Joan Eric Udorie.
The programme continues in Paris in September, before culminating in Lagos in October. The international programme forms part of DWL’s wider commitment to identifying new talent and ideas and creating connections between African designers, international audiences, industry and markets.
