A new continental institution dedicated to protecting and monetising Africa’s creative heritage has been announced, with Lagos named as one of its confirmed tour cities.
The ÀLKÉ Ball, founded by creative economy strategist Lulu Shabell, is designed to reshape global understanding of African fashion, strengthen Africa’s creative economies and secure long term cultural sovereignty for the continent. The initiative takes its name from Alkebulan, one of the oldest known names for Africa.
The inaugural edition will be held in Cape Town, with future editions confirmed to rotate across Lagos, Nairobi, Dakar, Addis Ababa, Accra and Cairo.
Central to the initiative is The ÀLKÉ Endowment, a permanent funding structure that will invest in education, manufacturing capacity, archives, research and enterprise development across the continent’s creative sector.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of significant untapped economic potential. Africa’s fashion industry generated $4.2 billion in exports in 2022 yet holds only a marginal share of the global luxury economy. The broader creative economy accounted for just 1.5 percent of global output that year despite Africa being widely recognised as the origin point of the world’s design intelligence. With structural investment, Africa’s creative economy could generate between $150 billion and $160 billion annually by 2030 according to BCG projections.
Lulu Shabell, Founder and CEO of LULUBELL Group, has spent nearly three decades building commercial pathways for African designers across more than thirty countries. She has directed global showcases at Portugal Fashion, TRANOÏ Paris and The Mercado Project at Rockefeller Center and has contributed to the UNESCO report on the African Fashion Industry.
The ÀLKÉ Ball is supported by a pan-African collective of designers, archivists, curators and scholars representing East, West, North, Southern and Central Africa.