Amechi Mandi and Kelechi Ejikeme

After more than a decade working as a lawyer at major banking firms such as Goldman Sachs and Société Générale, British-Nigerian Kelechi Ejikeme left the corporate world to pursue his passion for interior design.

Her rug collection is inspired by Nigeria’s diverse terrain – rolling hills, winding rivers, rolling savannahs and dense forests, and reminds me of the view from the plane.

“So when you translate that into a rug or a carpet, it’s symbolic,” she said when I met her at her booth at the Decorex interior design show held in London on last month.

“Like, every minute, this is something we’re literally stepping on every day.”

Made from jute, a durable and eco-friendly material, each rug integrates these natural elements.

Jute is usually grown locally for its edible leaves, not for its fiber. It comes from the same plant used to make ewedu soup, a staple dish in southwestern Nigeria.

To make his vision a reality, Ejikeme manufactured carpets in India and Nepal, where jute was more widely developed into a thriving industry.

Also at the event was Amechi Mandi, a Cameroonian-Nigerian interior designer who won House & Garden magazine’s Rising Star award in 2022.

He didn’t show any of his work, but spoke in a side session about his transition from fashion to interior design.

Mandi has a degree in furniture and product design, but after working in the fashion industry and then at a design firm, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of inspired interior textiles. Inspired by Africa.

He found them frequently relying on “clichéd” post-colonial motifs.

This led him to explore his Cameroonian and Nigerian heritage, focusing on pre-colonial traditions.

Realize the untapped potential of indigenous textiles is fading from memory – especially with the rise of “ankara” wax prints, a European import that has become iconic for African design – Mandi set out to revive these cultural elements.

He began integrating traditional techniques and patterns into his designs and his work now includes a popular cushion and throw pillow collection as well as a successful wallpaper collaboration.

“People tell me, ‘Oh, your work is not African,’ because they want to see ankara prints,” Mandi told me. It made a deep impression on people’s minds.”

“I took inspiration from local traditions and culture, then I gave it a more modern perspective,” he added.

Listening to Mandi made me realize that I too had associated modern African design with ankara fabric.

This textile has dominated African fashion and design, making its mark on the global stage in recent decades.

And so, walking around the exhibition, it was easy to assume that African design was absent from this remarkable gathering.

When he first started, Ejikeme combined both law and interior design, working in one department during the week and the other on the weekends. It didn’t take long for her to realize where her true passion lay.

“In one world, you are trying to contain your energy, yourself or your expression so as not to ruffle feathers, while in another world, your energy you cannot even extinguish,” she said. It”.

Since switching to full-time design six years ago, she has taken on a variety of projects, from home to work to film sets.

Last year, she launched her own rug collection, adding a new dimension to her work from studio Swallow and Tea.

“It’s a really new thing and I’ve only had two shows but so far I’ve had mostly residential and retail buyers, mainly from Europe, probably because of the show,” Ejikeme said. My first was in Belgium. Decorex was my first show in the UK.”

Most of Mandi’s customers are European, a trend he says stems from the widespread preference among many Africans for foreign products.

“Most Africans still prefer to buy Gucci,” he said.

“I have a number of African buyers but they are not like the average African. They are all born and raised abroad and have a deep understanding of African heritage and culture.”

Both Ejikeme and Mandi agree that interior design in Africa is still in its developing stages.

In contrast to fashion, which has long been an African focus and has recently experienced tremendous growth, the African interior design sector is just beginning to develop.

Ejikeme reflected on his first independent project in 2013, which coincided with a new wave of Africans in London entering high-paying sectors such as investment banking.

She aims to create spaces that not only exude luxury and comfort, but also bring a sense of home to her African clients, reflecting their heritage in a meaningful way.

“I was confused because I’m a lover of antiques. I love classic design. When I was at design school in London, what I loved most was the history of design, learning about all eras.” different periods – Victorian, Edwardian, etc. – and what distinguishes one from the other.

“But there is no such thing in Africa,” she said. There is nothing like the history of African design because we haven’t really kept up with that trend.”

This realization prompted her to begin classifying African design periods to better understand and preserve the continent’s design evolution, an ongoing project she began during spent the last 10 years living in Nigeria before returning to London last year.

Ejikeme visited places like the Bogobiri art gallery in Lagos, which displays a mix of ancient sculpture and modern art.

She also visited vendors in the quiet corners of Nigerian markets, where she met office workers used by Igbo elders in pre-colonial times. She began classifying the objects she came across according to their historical period, whether late 1990s or pre-colonial.

She hasn’t finished it yet and wants to spend more time on it to use them in her interior design projects.

Mandi believes that following trends in the way we design our homes and other spaces has historically never been an African thing, especially with the transatlantic slave trade for many century.

“Traditionally, interiors have never been a priority,” he says. We always pay attention to function. We focus more on exterior decoration, such as wall painting and exterior painting.”

“Every civilization has developed, but we have not had the opportunity to develop because of the 400 years we were captured by the transatlantic slave trade.”

He added that Africans were “in constant flight” during the slave trade, so “how can you think, ‘I have this house, I have to renovate the inside, let me put that bench, let me weave this cloth’? society has no such opportunity for development.”

Both Ejikeme and Mandi note that many wealthy and famous Africans, from celebrities to businessmen, often have interiors that lack a distinctly African identity.

However, Ejikeme believes this is changing as more and more Africans have disposable income, increasingly investing in decorating their homes in ways that tell their personal stories and document their experiences.

“If you have a product that can be made beautifully, refined and memorable, that tells some story or has some meaning, it will appeal to Africans and other non-Africans,” she said. ”.

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is a Nigerian journalist and novelist based in Abuja and London.