ÀLKÉ debuts, aims to protect, monetize Africa’s creative heritage - ITREALMS

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A major continental institution dedicated to protecting, preserving, and commercially monetizing Africa's vast creative heritage has been unveiled, with Lagos confirmed as one of its primary tour destinations, reports ITREALMS.

Dubbed The ÀLKÉ Ball; named after Alkebulan, one of the oldest known historical names for the African continent, the initiative is designed to fundamentally reshape the global understanding of African fashion, fortify regional creative economies, and secure long-term cultural sovereignty.

Founded by renowned creative economy strategist Lulu Shabell, the inaugural edition of the event will be hosted in Cape Town, with subsequent editions scheduled to rotate across key African cultural hubs including Lagos, Nairobi, Dakar, Addis Ababa, Accra, and Cairo.

"Africa holds a marginal share of the global luxury economy despite being widely recognized as the origin point of the world's design intelligence. This initiative aims to correct that imbalance."

Central to the institution's mission is The ÀLKÉ Endowment, a permanent, structured funding vehicle engineered to drive sustainable growth across the continent. The endowment will actively invest in:

Education & Research: Strengthening academic and archival infrastructure for African design history.

Manufacturing Capacity: Upgrading local production lines and supply chains to meet global standards.

Enterprise Development: Providing critical seed funding, intellectual property protection, and commercial scaling tools for creative entrepreneurs.

The launch of ÀLKÉ comes at a critical inflection point for the continent’s economy. While Africa's fashion industry generated $4.2 billion in exports in 2022, the broader creative economy accounted for a meager 1.5% of global output that same year.

However, with deliberate structural investment and formalized trade corridors, projections from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicate that Africa's creative economy could skyrocket to generate between $150 billion and $160 billion annually by 2030.

The initiative is helmed by Lulu Shabell, Founder and CEO of LULUBELL Group, who brings nearly three decades of experience building high-value commercial pathways for African designers across more than 30 countries.

Shabell, a key contributor to the landmark UNESCO report on the African Fashion Industry, has previously directed high-profile global showcases at Portugal Fashion, TRANOÏ Paris, and The Mercado Project at New York's Rockefeller Center.

To ensure true continental representation, The ÀLKÉ Ball is backed by a pan-African collective of leading designers, archivists, curators, and scholars spanning East, West, North, Southern, and Central Africa.

Chuks Egbune/DoP