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👋 Good afternoon! “Made in Nigeria” has become quite the buzzword, but how much of Nigerian fashion is actually made for Nigerians? There are a few reasons for the disconnect: the economy, local material production, and, well… maybe the president. In this week’s The Peel, we look at what it really takes to support Nigerian fashion, speaking to fashion brand owners about the challenges they face and what needs to change. |
Let’s get into it. |
In this edition: Treasure Hunt winners, inside our conversation with a Headies nominee, this week’s cultural moments, what is Ckay listening to, and more. |
If you’re enjoying this, don’t forget to subscribe and join The Juice community. We’re building this together ♡. |
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Shalom Tewobola,
Editor.
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🗞️ THIS WEEK IN CULTURE |
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💰BUSINESS |
After 12 years in Nigeria, Uber has officially shut down its operations in the country, bringing an end to its run as one of the biggest names in Nigeria’s ride-hailing market. |
With one major player gone, the question now is whether other ride-hailing platforms will fill the gap or whether commuters will have to dig deeper into their pockets. Judging by what we paid for a ride this morning, we may already have our answer. |
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⭐ BEAUTY |
Olamide Olowe, co-founder and longtime CEO of Black-founded beauty brand Topicals, is stepping down as CEO and transitioning to Chairwoman. She will continue to help the company’s vision while Sukiana Chancy takes over as CEO, joining from Fenty Beauty. |
It’s a new chapter for Topicals, and a sign of how Black-founded beauty brands are building leadership structures that can support their growth beyond their founders. We love to see it. |
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📚 LITERATURE |
The Caine Prize for African Writing has announced its 2026 shortlist, featuring writers from across the continent. And, as usual, a Nigerian writer made the cut. The shortlisted writers are Gladwell Pamba (Kenya), Melara Mvogdobo (Cameroon), Akinwande Jordan (Nigeria), Yasmine Zohdi (Egypt), and Simbarashe Steyn Kundizeza (Zimbabwe). |
The Caine Prize continues to create important platforms for African writers and stories, giving contemporary African literature the global recognition it deserves. We’ve already read some of the shortlisted stories, and, yes, they absolutely deserve the nod. |
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📽️ FILM |
Wande Thomas’ thriller, Spiraling (starring Toni Tones, Jim Iyke, and others), and seven other Nigerian titles join the list of films selected for the 17th Silicon Valley African Film Festival (SVAFF). |
Beyond the international exposure, festivals like SVAFF help build the community around African cinema, giving filmmakers new audiences, collaborators, and spaces to see their work in conversation with the rest of the continent. |
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⚡TRENDING |
This week, reports of counterfeit and potentially unsafe everyday products have surfaced one after another, from food and drugs to palm oil, green apples painted red, fake toothpaste, and frozen chicken reportedly preserved with chemicals containing unusually high levels of sodium. |
One case that drew attention was a Nigerian doctor’s warning about counterfeit Oral-B toothpaste found across multiple stores, with the retailers themselves unaware they were selling counterfeits. This warning reveals how easily potentially harmful products can make their way into the everyday items Nigerians buy and use. We are really concerned about consumer safety and regulation. |
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MAIN SQUEEZE |
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Ṣẹwà Makes Music for the Emotionally Complicated |
For Ṣẹwà , she never saw music-making as a career; her degree in Microbiology is enough to point that out. She went from singing with her friends as a hobby in 2019 to starting music professionally in 2021. |
Lines began to fall into place, and one December in 2025, Ṣẹwà performed one of her songs with Nigerian singer-songwriter Asa. The stage had been waiting for her, and she was ready. She went on to release Lagos Lovin’, a song that would eventually earn her a Headies nomination. |
But just weeks before the nominations were announced, Ṣẹwà was ready to quit. After years of writing, singing, producing, and carrying her music independently, her hobby-turned-career had begun to feel like a weight. |
Then the good news landed: four Headies nominations across Best Vocal Performance (Female), Best Female Artiste, Best Alternative Album, and Best Alternative Song. Suddenly, there was reason to keep going, and to keep making music about the emotions people feel but don’t always know how to express. |
In this interview, she talks about the experiences behind her debut and sophomore albums, Toxic and Detox, the unexpected journey of her Lagos Lovin’ single, the Headies recognition, and the realities of building an independent music career. |
You’ve been making music around love and relationships for a while. What keeps pulling you back to those themes, and what do you think you’re still trying to say about them? |
What keeps pulling me back is the familiarity. There are more complex topics I want to sing about, but I find it harder to tap into those emotions, so I lean towards what people can relate to. |
I have more experience with lust and heartbreak, so I use common heartbreak stories. I want to sing about things that put my experiences into perspective, and say what I actually feel. |
Your first project was called Toxic, and now you have Detox. Beyond the titles, what has changed in the themes, stories, or emotions you apply in your music? |
I’m glad someone caught the Toxic and Detox connection. I wrote Toxic a year after I was heartbroken, and I was still deep in the jaws of the pain. With Detox, I was done. |
I won’t say healed because you can still feel the effects someone’s presence or absence has on your life, but I had reached a point of sanity and resolve. |
My first approach to music is mostly grief. When I lost my dad and was healing from an accident, I was trying to distract myself, so I picked up a guitar. It became less about ticking something off my bucket list and more about healing. |
Lagos Lovin’ has connected with listeners and earned you two Headies nominations. What was happening when you wrote it, and what did you want the song to make people feel? |
The producer, ALLSVNS, was at a concert where I performed Dead Inside and told me he made a beat inspired by the show. Two months later, we hung out with my friend. |
At the lake, he played the beat, and I started singing along and recorded it on my phone. I wrote the verse to the chorus that day and polished the idea in my car. The chorus stayed in my head, but I couldn’t finish it. |
Six months later, after being occupied with other projects, I finished it. After the viral performance on Asa’s stage last year, the timing felt right. Louddaaa was ready, so I dropped it. It didn’t perform as well as I wanted, so I learnt how to promote it on TikTok. Shortly after, the streams skyrocketed. |
I wasn’t thinking about how it would make people feel when I wrote it, but how it made me feel. I love that people embraced it, even my mum, who always warns me about singing sad songs. I’m grateful to ALLSVNS, Louddaaa, WeTalkSound and Ayomide Taj. |
Detox has also earned you Best Alternative Album. What did making this project allow you to explore musically that you hadn’t explored before?
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A new level of stress. Performing songs that are mostly live without having the money was stressful, but it also made me explore the kindness of people because people will put things aside for you if you really ask. |
Most importantly, I was tapping into emotions I had been running away from. The album helped me heal from grief and everything that haunted me, including my dad’s death and my ego death. I gained a lot of clarity. |
Your first Headies recognition came with four nominations, including Best Female Artiste. What did that moment mean to you, especially with your career run?
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It meant a lot. I kept saying I would have been less shocked by a Grammy nomination. I was surprised because I don’t operate in the mainstream space, so being recognized gave me a lot of gas in my tank. I thought the moment with Asa was going to be the happiest in my career, but it just kept going up. |
There’s really no limit to this happiness in this music thing. Feeling seen meant a lot because the Headies is an award platform I looked up to as a child and still do. |
You’ve been building your music career independently. What has been the hardest part of doing it on your own, and was there ever a point when you questioned whether it was worth continuing?
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Everything. I have to think about songwriting, how they fit into a project, producers (I mostly self-produce), recording, mixing engineers within my budget, and directing performers over the phone because my collaborators live in different parts of the world. |
Finances are the biggest challenge. I’d like to be a touring artist, and financial support would help me do things on a larger scale. Ideas are easy to come up with, but executing them is not. |
If I had a Cobhams to my Asa, I feel things would be perfect, and I wouldn’t have to carry the bulk of everything alone. |
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FEATURE POST |
WIMCA 2026 Spotlights Women Shaping Nigeria’s Marketing Industry |
The 12th edition of the Women in Marketing & Communications Conference/Awards (WIMCA) recognized women shaping Nigeria’s marketing and communications industry, while creating space to discuss the resilience, leadership, and skills needed to navigate its future. |
Held on August 29 under the theme “Grow, Give, Glow: Professional Resilience for Distinction,” the event named 50 of the country’s most influential women in marketing and communications, including News Central TV’s Rosemary Egabor-Afolahan, communications executive Maduagwu Olufunmilola, PR consultant Omawumi Ogbe, and MTN Nigeria CMO Onyinye Ikenna-Emeka. |
WIMCA also awarded the Tolucomms Prize for Tenacity, a cash award supporting young female PR agency founders under 35. |
Beyond the recognition, initiatives like this provide visibility and resources that can help more women build lasting careers and businesses in an industry where leadership and influence are still being shaped. |
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🔪 THE PEEL |
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Who is Nigerian Fashion Really For? |
The discourse |
In August, Stylepro Magazine did a price survey of how long it would take a Nigerian worker to afford pieces from local fashion brands. Using a hypothetical ₦100,000 monthly salary above the ₦70,000 minimum wage, they calculated daily earnings at ₦4,545 across 22 working days and divided each piece’s price by that figure. |
The cheapest, a JBottoms playsuit, took 38 working days to afford; the most expensive, a Fruché Ife Mama coat, took 445 working days. Suddenly, the beautiful fit you’re eyeing becomes a burden of weeks and months of someone's salary, and not just a “cute buy.” |
The growing conversation around Nigerian fashion prices shows that the average Nigerian cannot afford many of these pieces. So, how do Nigerians support local brands when the prices are beyond their pay grade, and how did we get here? |
Peeling it back |
Producing a piece of clothing involves more than the final design: fabric and material sourcing, labour, machinery, electricity, logistics, packaging, and the unseen costs of mistakes all add up. |
For Nigerian brands, these costs are compounded by a developing fashion value chain. Inadequate local processing leaves brands reliant on imported textiles, while electricity, transport, and skilled labour further drive up production costs. |
Speaking with ADORE HER founder Aduralere Ladele says costing starts with the fabric: “We consider the amount and material of the fabric as well as how hard it is to work with or source them.” |
As a student running her brand alongside school, she deliberately designs affordable, easy-to-make pieces and tests them with consultants and returning customers. “I try my best not to create designs that people, or me, can't afford,” she says. |
But even with purchasing power guiding her pricing, there is a limit. “There will always be that gap, but going lower will be hustling for bankruptcy, and the business has to keep running.” |
For Severe Nature’s Product Manager, Ben Maku, pricing starts with production and shipping costs. “The major thing that decides product pricing is the unit production and shipping cost,” he says. |
The brand works mainly with repeat manufacturers on standardised pricing, helping them secure affordable rates for good-quality products. |
From there, pricing is determined by what customers are willing to pay. “A lot of our consideration is on the value of the product,” Maku says. Based on experience, the brand matches its products to customers’ established spending range. |
Another layer |
Understanding why a dress costs ₦400,000 does not make it any less expensive for someone earning ₦200,000 a month. That is the widening gap between Nigerian fashion brands and the average consumer. |
The industry is growing and gaining global recognition, but who gets to participate in that growth? For someone earning ₦200,000, a ₦100,000 dress is half their salary. For someone earning ₦100,000, it is the entire salary, before rent, food, transport, and everything else that somehow finishes a paycheck. |
So when brands say they want Nigerians to buy Nigerian, which Nigerians are they talking to? |
Increasingly, it may be high-income Nigerians, celebrities, influencers, and the diaspora. That is not necessarily bad business, as the diaspora has greater purchasing power, and brands targeting a global market have to price accordingly. |
Chinazam Ikechi-Uko, a fashion journalist, doesn’t think brands targeting the diaspora is inherently a problem, but says relying solely on an international market is unsustainable. |
What matters, she says, is where the value lands: “If the brand is paying artisans, sourcing homegrown fabrics, and hiring Nigerian models and other creatives,” it still contributes to the Nigerian economy, wherever the customer is. |
However, if a piece is made by Nigerians, represents Nigerian fashion, yet is priced beyond most Nigerians’ reach, does Made in Nigeria automatically mean it is accessible to Nigerians? |
Not every Nigerian fashion brand is expensive, but a growing number occupy the premium and luxury space. How many people can afford a Popwave shirt, a Kai Collective tank top or an Onalaja dress? |
Not all of that pricing is arbitrary either. Ikechi-Uko points to Hertunba, which works with Akwete, a handwoven Igbo textile traditionally reserved for ceremonial occasions. “You really can't expect it to be under #100,000 because it is synonymous with aspiration. It’s something you save up for, the dress you dream to wear for your birthday.” |
For brands like this, she argues, the price is not just covering production; it is the cost of the dream itself. Her caveat is that the logic does not hold up as well for brands positioned as casual, where high prices without matching quality are “questionable.” For consumers priced out of the category, the desire to look good remains, and it sends them elsewhere. |
The core |
The goal of running businesses is to make profits, and since running costs determine product prices, the inevitable truth is that some consumers won’t be able to afford certain brands. |
Fashion is vast, and many other brands exist as bridges between. The honest place to land is that “Made in Nigeria” was never the same promise as “Made for Nigerians.” |
A fashion industry can be proudly Nigerian, locally produced and marketed, but still not accessible to locals because of how much goes into it. |
That doesn’t make its identity any less Nigerian. However, the relationship Nigerians have with such brands can change because reality has drifted them apart. The industry has moved on, and so have the people. |
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🎵 PRESSED BY THE JUICE |
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Lovers of Love Nwantiti, this week's playlist is for y'all! We spoke to CKay to get the music he has on repeat, his sound rotation when he's getting ready, and songs all his fans should know word for word. |
Save, share, and follow our Pressed by Juice playlist on Spotify. |
Do you have a song you’d like us to include? Put us on; reply here. |
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FRESH STATS |
40% In parts of West Africa, up to 40% of the medical products in the legal supply chain are substandard or falsified. |
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Today’s email was written by Shalom Tewobola and Ikeoluwa Amonimo, edited by Shalom Tewobola. Designs by: Daniel Banjoko. |
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