Africans at the cutting edge of interior design

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

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

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

“It’s like, every minute, this is what we actually step on every day.”

Each rug is made of jute, a sustainable and environmentally friendly material, and contains these natural elements.

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

To bring her vision to life, Ejikeme has her carpets produced in India and Nepal, where jute is developing into a thriving industry on a larger scale.

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

He wasn’t showing any of his work, but had just spoken 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 later at a design agency, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of genuine African-inspired home textiles.

He thought that they too often based themselves on ‘clichéd’, postcolonial motifs.

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

Recognizing the untapped potential of indigenous textiles that are fading from memory – especially with the rise of ‘ankara’ wax prints, a European import that has come to symbolize African design – Mandi wanted to revive these cultural elements.

He began incorporating traditional techniques and patterns into his designs, and his work now includes a popular collection of cushions and throws, as well as a successful wallpaper collaboration.

“People have said to me, ‘Oh, your work isn’t African,’ because they want to see prints of Ankara. I’ve been so impressed,” Mandi told me.

“I draw inspiration from indigenous traditions and cultures, and then give it a more contemporary twist,” he added.

Listening to Mandi made me realize how much I had also come to associate modern African design with ankara fabrics.

These textiles have dominated African fashion and design and have made their mark on the global stages in recent decades.

And so, as I wandered through the exhibition, I could easily assume that African designs were absent from this remarkable gathering.

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

“In one world you try to control your energy, yourself or your expression so you don’t ruffle feathers, while in another world you can’t even extinguish your energy,” she said.

Since making the leap to full-time design six years ago, she has tackled a variety of projects, from homes and workplaces to film sets.

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

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

Most of Mandi’s customers are Europeans, a trend he attributes to a prevailing preference among many Africans for foreign products.

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

“I have some Africans who buy, but they are not like regular Africans. They were all people who were born and raised abroad and are deeply immersed in African heritage and culture.”

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

Unlike fashion, which has long been a major focus for Africans and has recently experienced remarkable growth, the field of African interior design is just beginning to establish itself.

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

She wanted to create spaces that not only exuded luxury and comfort, but also captured a sense of home for her African clients and reflected their heritage in a meaningful way.

“I was amazed because I’m someone who loves antiques. I love old design. When I was at design school in London, my favorite thing to do was history of design, like learning about all the different periods – Victorian, Edwardian, etc. – and what distinguished one from the other.

“But nothing like that existed in Africa. There’s nothing like the history of African design because we haven’t really kept that track,” she said.

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

Ejikeme visited places like Bogobiri Art Gallery in Lagos, which displayed a mix of ancient sculpture and modern art.

She also visited vendors in quiet corners of Nigerian markets, where she encountered office workers used by Igbo elders in pre-colonial times. She began to categorize the objects she encountered according to their period in history, whether they were late 1990s or pre-colonial.

She’s not done yet and wants to spend more time using them in her interior design projects.

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

“Traditionally, interiors have never been a priority. We have always been concerned with functionality. We were more concerned with decorating our exteriors, like painting the walls and painting the exterior,” he said.

“Every civilization has evolved, but we haven’t had the chance to evolve because of the 400 years we were arrested with the transatlantic slave trade.”

He added that during the slave trade, Africans were “constantly on the run,” so “how can you think, ‘I have this house, I have to fix the inside, let me put that bench, let me weave this rug’?” society didn’t have the chance to evolve like that.”

Both Ejikeme and Mandi noted that many wealthy and prominent Africans, from celebrities to entrepreneurs, often have interiors that do not have a distinct African identity.

However, Ejikeme believes this is changing as more Africans earn disposable income. They are increasingly investing in furnishing their homes in a way that tells their personal story and captures their experiences.

“If you have a product that can be made beautifully and exquisitely and has some kind of memorable character, that tells a story or has a meaning, it will appeal to Africans and other people who are not African,” she says.

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

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