iDesign, EbonyLife Place to promote home-grown designers at Eko Design Exhibition

In a bid to promote, support and highlight home-grown interior designers, iDESIGN, an award winning interior design company, has announced partnership with EbonyLife Place to promote home-grown designers at Eko Design Exhibition.

Eko Design is the next in the Eko series following Eko Star, Eko Culture and Eko Film. These events have been sponsored by Lagos state and the aim is to highlight the best of Nigeria’s flourishing creative industries.

Eko Design, crafted living showcased furniture and lighting that are home grown and home inspired.

The 3-day event which was held from 21st – 23rd October 2021 at the Victoria Hall, EbonyLife Place, Victoria Island, Lagos also aimed to showcase and promote beautiful furniture and home products made in Nigeria, as well as create an environment where the creative industry, local designers and architects can come together to form strong business relationships within the Lagos design community.

Awarding winning Lagos design firm iDESIGN, has worked on a number of exclusive residential and hospitality design projects with a focus on local artistic expression through art and furniture.

Speaking during the exhibition in Lagos, Tola Akerele Creative director and founder, iDESIGN said iDESIGN are the designers of EbonyLife Place that designed the interior and the hotel.

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“For us, we wanted to showcase home-grown talents. We want to show what people are doing locally. So we selected people that have original designs in terms of furniture and lighting. We saw that a lot of people want to come onboard. A lot of people are passionate about what they are doing. These people doing light and furniture are inspired by what is around them.

“We have styled EbonyLife Place, we set out the layout, we also designed the space. We want people to come and see the exhibition. We also want people to order the furnitures. We hope people can purchase today,” Akerele said.

She explained that in designing the space, iDESIGN involved homegrown talents and worked with interior designers in a contemporary space which was really key to include Nigerian art and Nigerian inspired pieces.

Also speaking during the exhibition, Michael Williams, the general manager EbonyLife Place said the Eko Design is the 8th in a series of events all designed to highlight what is going on in tourism, arts and culture in Lagos and the idea behind it all is to highlight all the different aspects of the creative economy that is so important to Lagos.

According to Williams, Lagos is an important centre for music and entertainment and Nollywood is based here as well.

“There is dance, food, hospitality and so many different aspects that have already been highlighted in the series. We had the Eko Style Awards highlighting women, in film and TV, we had the Taste of Lagos which is food and drinks, there is Eko Dance, Eko Youth highlighting young entrepreneurs in Lagos,” he explained.

Williams who also spoke on behalf if the ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture for Lagos State said the ministry, EbonyLife Place and iDESIGN are all partners in creating this event, adding that iDESIGN helped create the whole event and put it all together.

“Today it is really about interior designs, furniture and lighting. If you look around EbonyLife Place, the hotel, the lobby and the restaurants, you will see so many beautiful examples of Nigerian designs all around you.

“It was very important for us to use Nigerian designers because we wanted to show that we can do things like everyone in the world and that is why we have done it and that is why this event is important,” he said.

He disclosed that there were 15 exhibitors for the event as they only selected the best.

“We didn’t have room for everyone. So with the help of iDESIGN, we selected the best designers we could find and those designers all have their works in the best homes in Nigeria. So, we are encouraging more people to work with them,” Williams added.