Amechi Mandi and Kelechi Ejikeme

After more than a decade as a lawyer at powerhouse banking firms such as Goldman Sachs and Société Générale, Nigerian-British Kelechi Ejikeme is leaving the corporate world to follow her passion for interiors Passion for design.

Her rug collection is inspired by Nigeria’s diverse terrain – rolling hills, winding rivers, vast savannahs and dense forests that remind me of the scenery I see from an airplane.

“So when you interpret it as a rug or rug, it has a symbolic meaning,” she said when I met her at her stall at the Decorex interior design show in London last month.

“Like, every minute, that’s what we’re literally stepping on every day.”

Each rug is crafted from jute, a durable and eco-friendly material that incorporates these natural elements.

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

To realize her vision, Ejikeme produces rugs in India and Nepal, where jute is more widely developed and a booming industry.

Also attending the event was Cameroonian-Nigerian interior designer Amechi Mandi, winner of House & Garden magazine’s 2022 Rising Star Award.

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

Mandy has a degree in furniture and product design, but after working in the fashion industry and later in design firms, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of authentic African style interior textiles.

He found that they often relied on “clichéd” postcolonial themes.

This led him to explore the heritage of Cameroon and Nigeria, focusing on pre-colonial traditions.

Realizing that the untapped potential of indigenous textiles was fading from people’s memories – especially with the rise of ‘Ankara’ wax prints, an import from Europe that had become a symbol of African design – Mandy began a renaissance 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 tell me, ‘Oh, your work is not African’ because they want to see Ankara prints. That makes a big impression on people,” Mandy told me.

“I took inspiration from Aboriginal tradition and culture and then gave it a more contemporary twist,” he adds.

Listening to Mandy’s talk made me realize that I too was starting to connect modern African design with Ankara fabrics.

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

So as I wandered through the exhibition, it was easy to think that African design was absent from this famous gathering.

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

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

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

Last year she launched her own range of rugs, adding a new dimension to her work at Swallows and Tea Studio.

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

Most of Mandy’s customers are European, a trend he attributes to a general preference among many Africans for foreign products.

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

“I do have some Africans buying stuff, but they’re not like regular Africans. They’re people who were born and raised abroad and have a deep understanding of African traditions and culture.”

Both Ejikeme and Mandi agree that interior design in Africa is still in its development stage.

In contrast to fashion, which has long been a focus for Africans and has recently experienced significant growth, the African interior design scene is only beginning to establish itself.

Ejikeme reflects 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.

Her goal was to create spaces that not only exuded luxury and comfort, but also felt like home for her African clients, reflecting their heritage in a meaningful way.

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

“But there’s no such thing in Africa. There’s nothing like the history of African design because we haven’t really maintained that trajectory,” she said.

This realization led her to begin cataloging African design periods to better understand and preserve the continent’s design evolution, an ongoing project she began during the decade she lived in Nigeria until returning to London last year.

Ejikeme visited places like the Bogobiri Art Gallery in Lagos, which showcases a mix of ancient sculptures and modern art.

She also visited sellers in quiet corners of Nigerian markets, where she met workers in offices used by Igbo elders during pre-colonial times. She began categorizing the objects she encountered according to historical periods, whether it was the late 1990s or the pre-colonial period.

She is not done yet and hopes to devote more time to using them in her interior design projects.

Mandy believes that following trends when designing homes and other spaces has historically never been an African thing, especially as the transatlantic slave trade continued for centuries.

“Traditionally, interior decoration has never been a priority. We have always focused on functionality. We have focused more on decorating the exterior, such as painting the walls, painting the exterior,” he said.

“Every civilization evolves, but we didn’t have a chance to evolve because for 400 years we were arrested for the transatlantic slave trade.”

He added that Africans were “constantly on the run” during the slave trade, so “how can you think, ‘I have this house, I have to make it nice, let me put that bench, let me knit this piece of cloth’?

Both Ejikeme and Mandy point out that the interiors of many wealthy and prominent Africans, from celebrities to entrepreneurs, often lack overt African features.

However, Ejikeme believes this is changing as more Africans gain disposable income and increasingly invest in decorating their homes to tell their personal stories and capture their experiences .

“If you have a product that can be made beautiful, sophisticated, memorable, tell a story or mean something, it will appeal to Africans and other non-Africans,” she said.

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