Forget Milan - Fashion Centre emerging countries in sub-Saharan Africa

  Shoppers willing to spend generously on the elite clothing designers sipped champagne in a store is discreet that only those in the know-the-know exists.

Maybe this is not an unusual scene in Manhattan or Milan but in Lagos, the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa, stores are a novelty such as Temple Muse. A growing number of boutique owners and fashion designers, however, are working to change this situation.

Most of the approximately 160 million people in Nigeria living in extreme poverty, but the upper classes are among the richest in Africa, including those who took advantage of the continent's largest oil industry.

Nigerian sense of style is also well known, and the country has several fashion designers who have made their mark internationally.

Just ask Michelle Obama, who wore a dress from Maki Oh Nigeria during a recent trip to South Africa.

Or take the Wadhwani brothers, the Indians, but were raised in Lagos. She saw that there was a gap in the luxury market of the city.

The brothers opened a business that for the consumer the ultra-upscale Nigeria usually hop on planes to Europe during their wardrobe will need to upgrade to.

"I found a niche in the market," said Avinash Wadhwani, co-owner of Temple Muse boutique in the upscale Victoria Iceland Lagos.

Previously, he worked as a buyer for the London department store Selfridges, learning first-hand the call first European fashion lines. But he insisted rich Nigeria also try a local look.

Some Nigerians "travel by plane every two weeks and shop in the best stores around the world, but they still have the feeling of pride and everyone wants something from [their] own heritage," he said.

"Where did you get that? '

Temple Museum, which opened five years ago, is protected by the mega-city excitement in front of a door made of thick metal and has a champagne bar and a café. Some dresses come with price tags of $ 3,000 (€ 2.300), and there are fashion gurus ready to snatch some of them.

Odun Ogunbiyi, a customer who claims a lot of experience of shopping abroad, told the AFP news agency the outfits she buys in Nigeria are admired wherever she goes.

"I travel a lot I go to Miami, I'm going to London to visit friends and family and they ask me .." Where did you get it, "said Ogunbiyi, a TV presenter.

When she tells people holding Nigeria, they say they "can not believe it," she said.

"It got to the point where we are the norm with international brands, which is great!"

Wadhwani agreed that Nigerian designers increasingly respected abroad.

Recent emergence of the first American woman in a blouse Oh Maki was seen as evidence of increasing stress for designers here.

But Wadhwani know that local customers will also carry high-end European names, so it saves Nigerian designer Lanre Da Silva Ajayi embroidered next to Givenchy and Emilio Pucci dresses from Italy.

Tope Edu is another supplier of fashion in the hope that rich Nigerians will be more in Lagos shop. It manages the Ermenegildo Zegna store on Victoria's first and only release of the Italian line in sub-Saharan Africa, which opened in April island.

But in a reminder of the dangers of doing business in Nigeria, Edu said it took seven years for the franchise open to luxury.

Zegna first need to be sure that there is a customer base to support the store, but is faced with a lack of reliable data on consumers.

A number of custom events Zegna have confidence are for full-time store ready-to-wear was able to survive.

Company CEO Gildo Zegna also had faith in the buying power of super-rich Africa.

He told the Financial Times that the customers of the continent have an average of 50 percent spent more in stores Zegna that buyers from other regions.

The next challenge was the place, and to ensure, as Edu explained that the Lagos "Zegna Zegna shop just looked like a business elsewhere in the world."

"This is a very difficult process," she admitted, citing bureaucratic nightmare Nigeria.

The independent shop is on a street of office buildings that hardly offers the majestic Champs-Elysées in Paris street, but inside business seems to be booming.

Especially on more casual things like polo shirts, which are picked up at just under $ 500 each, Edu told AFP.

It debunks the idea that the elite of the Nigerian shops are obliged exclusively abroad.

"If [they] know that it is available, I think that the same customer will buy from here," she said.

"Zara with an African accent"

How Zegna, Folake Folarin Cocker growing belief in the wider Nigerian and African market.

Tiffany Amber line, launched in 1998 and launched the first prêt-à-porter brand Nigeria, four freestanding stores in the country.

His creations are also sold in Ghana and South Africa and will soon be available in oil-rich Angola.

Shoppers in Milan and London can also article by Tiffany Amber but Folarin Cocker, European and American markets are mainly for advertising.

These "markets are saturated. Unused Africa," she said.

Although his work is currently Luxury interest, prepares a series of lower costs because it believes that the continent is thirsty for affordable, ready-to-wear.

H & M or "Zara with an African accent," she said, referring to European popular clothing stores.

As the owner and buyer Temple Muse Folarin Cocker takes pride in the growing respect and exposure given designers Nigeria and said the talent in the fashion industry can help change the perception of the continent.

"Fashion is one of the ways that we be able to rebrand Africa," she said. "It's not" We Are The World, we are the children "more."