ALÁRA: A CULTURAL HUB OR JUST A HYPE SPOT?

It seemed like just about everyone in lagos was going to ALÁRA last year and we had to talk about it.

Since its inception over 8 years ago, ALÁRA has had very little competition in the Nigerian luxury retail space.

Reni Folayiwo’s vision for the brand was clear.

“Put African luxury in the spotlight”

but now, it’s obvious that ALARA’s vision is much more nuanced than that.

aside making not just African’s but the world at large, realize that a brand from Mail can be just as luxurious as Prada. ALARA has formed a formidable creative community, “the Alara Fam”, boasting names like Naomi Campbell, tokini Peter side( founder of Art X Lagos), Grace ladoja, Kenneth Ize, Stephen Tayo, falana and many more, as members of the ever expanding community.

It’s easy for a stakeholder like ALARA to be considered a hype spot.

with the space hosting just about everything from art functions, to parties, to awareness campaigns.

The difference with ALARA how ever is the spirit behind it.

it’s not just some heavily funded project by an industry plant, this is Reni’s legacy project.

A “symbol of African renaissance” as she put it.

Paired with Nok by ALARA (the pan-African restaurant/ bar) ALARA continues to Forge ahead in paving the way for a meeting point between African design, fashion and art.

It might be a stretch to say Alara is just a hype spot, but isn’t every popular cultural landmark ?

Naturally, pace setters and trend makers tend to be surrounded with a fair amount of hype when their value is recognized and most times, the purists believe that dilutes their originality in a way.

Does this apply to Alara ?

Who can say, all we can say for sure is ALARA and Nok have left their dent in the African culture/Art exchange scene.

and that dent isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

-David courage ode