Nigeria, on the Fashion Catwalk

The cornrow hair traced the scalp above a rainbow of eye shadow and a mouth polished with pink lipstick. On this curvy figure, the multipatterned dress flowed down toward fantastical platform-soled shoes.

Kola Kuddus at the end of his summer 2013 show during Lagos Fashion & Design Week.

And that was just one occupant of the front row during the fashion shows in Lagos last month.

The Nigerian people, upbeat and enthusiastic, seemed to relish the chance to watch shows rotating on the runway, or the opportunity to view an exhibition of bold purses. Woven, feathered and beaded by skillful fingers, these carefully crafted accessories gave a whole new meaning to “hand” bag.

In an international fashion world where a blasé boredom often engulfs the audience, the Lagos Fashion & Design Week was a tonic.

First came the fabrics: patterns put together with the crazy intricacy seen on the streets, but in a controlled and convincing way. A narrative print of stick figures, as if from some local event, walked the vivid yellow surface of a Tiffany Amber jumpsuit.

At Jewel by Lisa , the cup-shaped boats surfing the undulating silk fabric had a message: the life of the ancient Hausa-Fulani people.

“I did a lot of research — and I always want to bring it home. It is about what we are about,” said Lisa Folawiyo, the designer behind the label.

The slender silhouettes and wax print patterns in strong colors from Jewel by Lisa will be one of several brands on sale next month in a pop-up boutique inside the London store Selfridges. Love-to-shop Nigerians figure at No.5 among the store’s big-spending Chinese, Middle Eastern and Russian clients.

Judd Crane, Selfridges’ director of women’s wear, says: “We are delighted to launch this special showcase featuring some of the best fashion from Nigeria. We have been taking note of the development of the fashion scene over there for a the past couple of years and been thinking of bringing them to London for a while. It felt right this year to demonstrate the power and originality from Africa.

“The designers from Lagos offer our customers the opportunity to discover new ways to experience luxury fashion,” he adds. “The impressive craftsmanship and the use of fabric, pattern, color and embellishments will surprise.”

Behind the Lagos Fashion & Design initiative, now in its second season, is its organizer: Omoyemi Akerele, trained as a lawyer, but now administrator and organizer of fashion brand-building.

Determined to push forward the disparate talents in her native country, she has sought the support of Abimbola Fashola, first lady of the Nigerian state of Lagos, as well as finding sponsorship to present its fashion to the world.

“People here are hungry for knowledge about fashion and other creative industries — but how do we learn more and gain access?” says Ms. Akerele, who feels that she has only begun to put things in place.

The summer 2013 collections were vibrant in color, joyous in spirit and shown on curvy models to mirror the glamorous figures in the front row. If there were some echoes from the international collections — Riccardo Tisci’s mouthpieces, Mary Katrantzou’s postage stamp patterns and John Galliano’s newspaper print, the shows still seemed inventive.

The pan-African fashion magazine “Arise” has been promoting the continent’s designers since its debut in 2009, organizing events during New York fashion weeks, in Paris, Johannesburg and its own fashion weeks in Lagos, most recently showing the work of 77 designers over four days in March.

Ms. Akerele also means business. This year she took a handful of local designers to show at the Pitti Immagine women’s event in Florence; and again to a talent contest in Milan put forward by Italian Vogue.

Scheduling the Lagos catwalk shows back-to-back was slightly frustrating. It seemed like the same models were in a loop, running through the convention center of the Eko Hotel. But the relative calm of the shows’ pace offered a kind of parallel world to the madness of the oil-rich, construction-crazy city of Lagos, with its high-rise buildings and traffic chaos in streets cleansed by a new sweeping initiative.

The swagger of the Lagos man was captured by the jaunty tailoring of Emmy Collins or the mix of Madras checks from Kola Kuddus . On a quieter note, the Sudanese designer Omer Asim expressed in long, light fabrics, shown on barefoot models, a graceful spirit.

Getting the right dose of urban and tribal is the skill of Anita Quansah , a Nigerian-born designer living in England. Her striking pieces of jewelry might better be described as totems: rings of beads or feathers worn on the head or around the neck.