By Adina Laura Achim

There’s a whole world of glorious fashion out there waiting to be appreciated and evaluated, and the Fashion Time’s Adina Laura Achim is hard at work stylishly discovering it, this time in Lagos, Nigeria, the hub of African culture and glamour…

Whatever they tell you, shopping in Lagos, Nigeria is a difficult task. The streets might be invaded by street vendors but a “real shopping experience” is rarely achieved in the western way.

Of course, there are some malls which sell some clothes and shoes- mostly imported from China but at designer prices, and some boutiques where you’ll find some nice products, but again, the ratio price- quality isn’t really the best.

So, where do Nigerians shop?

The upper-classes, abroad! As absurd as it might sound, they really would take a British Airways flight and jet off to London or Dubai, but the emerging middle class have invented a cooler shopping experience: pop-up shops!

Basically, boutiques or expos appear for a day or a weekend, in the bars or the trendy spots of the city.

Mobile markets are very loved by the public, mostly because they manage to attract the emerging designers and the fashion forward crowd. The proposed designs are surely vanguard and not easily found on the local market, plus they have the big plus of being simultaneously: affordable and modern.

The proposed items vary from shoes, clothes, jewelries, watches, sun glasses, lingerie, to hair extensions.

A creative local world, which changes location each weekend, but gathers the same cool crowd!

Images by Adina Laura Achim

Adina Laura Achim graduated with honors from Schiller International University, Madrid and Link Campus, Rome. She majored in political sciences and diplomacy but also studied fashion in Rome, Italy for one year. She is a European, who has lived in some of the most stylish cities in the world, such as Paris, Madrid, Rome and New York, and is now relocating to Buenos Aires. She has published two novels in Romanian, a political book in Italian and in February 2011, her first love novel in English, will come out. Being always on the run, she prefers to write all the ideas, emotions, or crazy thoughts which runs through her mind in her blog: http://adina333.posterous.com/