In a digital age obsessed with virality, Primeries Africa is building something less fleeting, a creative ecosystem. While most fashion startups are busy chasing algorithms, Primeries is quietly architecting a network: one that fuses Africa’s restless creative energy with a spirit of shared growth. They call themselves “The Leading Online Community to Discover Extraordinary African Creatives.” But behind that tagline lies something bigger, a cultural movement that understands that community, not clout, is the new couture.
Founded by Benjamin Unah and Lotanna Onyekwelu in 2021, Primeries grew out of the frustrations of young African designers trying to find space in a market that often glorifies imported aesthetics over indigenous brilliance. Instead of adding another clothing brand to the noise, the duo built a platform that reimagines how fashion can live online, part marketplace, part mentorship hub, part cultural journal.
From curating docuseries spotlighting next-gen disruptors like Luwa.Mp4, the genre-melting Nigerian artist who sits comfortably between Afropop, hyperpop, and punk rebellion, to Tobi Naiwo, the visionary behind nine.ng, Primeries isn’t just showcasing talent. They’re documenting a creative timeline in motion. Each story they tell is a fragment of the continent’s ongoing dialogue between tradition and digital innovation.
But what makes Primeries striking isn’t the visual aesthetic alone, it’s their insistence on shared learning. Their growing online community doubles as a digital atelier for emerging designers, stylists, and culture builders seeking more than visibility. Think: practical design insights disguised as cultural commentary, branding strategies that feel like lifestyle philosophy, startup wisdom told through the lens of lived experience.
Through newsletters, editorial campaigns, and thought-driven storytelling, Primeries offers young African fashion entrepreneurs a kind of digital mentorship, the kind that feels earned, not instructed. They’re teaching creatives to build timeless brands instead of trendy ones, to merge commerce with culture, and to sustain creativity in an economy that often sidelines art.
In a way, Primeries represents the soft power of Africa’s Gen Z creative economy, visionary, DIY, and digitally fearless. They’re part platform, part people’s archive, curating the blueprint for what African fashion’s next decade might look like: interconnected, informed, and unapologetically communal.
And maybe that’s the point, that the real fashion revolution in Africa won’t be televised on the runway but shared, post by post, through communities like Primeries. The brand isn’t just elevating fashion; it’s redesigning how we belong to it.
