ALÁRA LAGOS x MAISON ARTC TRANSFORM TRADITION WITH “MOVING CULTURE”

ALÁRA Lagos has opened a new chapter of cultural storytelling with “Moving Culture,” an exhibition in collaboration with Moroccan art-fashion house Maison ARTC. The showcase is built on Reni Folawiyo’s private archive of vintage Aso Oke, textiles that hold decades of Yoruba memory, and presents them in reimagined forms that feel ceremonial, sculptural, and resolutely contemporary.

The archive isn’t simply displayed; it’s transformed. Every piece has been cut, layered, and reassembled into garments that function like living sculptures. Deep burgundy stripes meet earth-toned patchwork, while handwoven cloth drapes into long, architectural silhouettes. In one look, the figure is wrapped in rich, wine-colored Aso Oke with a burnt-orange headpiece blooming like a crown. Metallic ornaments rest over the face, turning the wearer into a walking relic, part spirit, part storyteller. Another ensemble pairs neutral-toned embroidered fabrics with a sweeping skirt and a dramatic orange bow tied at the waist. The effect is regal but expressive, as if history itself has been dressed for the future.

Maison ARTC has always worked in the space where fashion meets folklore, and here the approach feels intentional. The garments do not erase the past; they carry it. Traditional Yoruba weaving techniques, once reserved for chieftaincy cloth and rites of passage, are placed into a new artistic language. The result is bold, almost theatrical, yet grounded in real heritage. Every stitch feels like a conversation between ancestors and the modern creative world.

This collaboration arrives during ART X Lagos, a fitting moment when the city becomes a meeting point for global and African artistic expression. Inside ALÁRA, the garments stand like moving monuments, designed to honor culture, not freeze it in time. The exhibition argues that heritage is not static. Cloth remembers. Craft evolves. And identity reshapes itself with every new hand that touches tradition.

“Moving Culture” is less about nostalgia and more about continuity. The pieces remind viewers that culture breathes, migrates, and reinvents itself, just as fashion does. What ALÁRA and Maison ARTC present is not a museum of old cloth, but a living archive, one that carries Yoruba history forward, without losing the thread of where it began.