By Prisca Sam-Duru

After a successful maiden edition held in June 2025, Imose 1.1 returned during the week with even more purpose, attracting more attendees and vendors from across the country.

Imose 1.1 took place on December 18 and 19, 2025, at La Madison Place, Oniru, Lagos. This edition featured a vibrant marketplace of fashion, beauty, wellness, art, and handmade brands. Masterclasses and conversations tailored to equip entrepreneurs, a curated cultural and fashion experience, and a community space where creativity, healing, and enterprise met were also held.

Conceived as a luxury fashion and lifestyle trade fair, Imose, which means “beautiful” in the Edo language, gathered top designers, emerging brands, and creative entrepreneurs in a vibrant marketplace and community space. The fashion exhibition was created as a platform to uplift young people, particularly women and youths, with creative talents.

The Imose exhibition is an extension of the long-standing humanitarian work of the Sewa Foundation, through which its founder and convener, Mrs Angela Jide-Jones, has supported widows for over two decades.

While supporting mothers, she realised that their children also needed opportunities, especially as many young people graduate from school without jobs.

“We started training the youths, brought in artisans, and gave them seed capital to start businesses. But we soon realised that many of them were extremely talented and skilled, yet lacked a platform to be seen. That was how the idea of Imose was born,” she said.

Mrs Jide Jones who spoke earlier during a press briefing on Tuesday, expressed joy that an initiative that began as a simple idea, a gathering to celebrate beauty, wellness, fashion, and creativity, has grown into something far greater than she imagined.

The maiden edition of Imose, held in June according to her, welcomed over eight hundred attendees and seventy emerging businesses across beauty, fashion, wellness, handmade products, and lifestyle brands.
While excited about such an impressive number of attendees and vendors, Angela said, the most heartwarming were the stories that are now turning Imose from an event to a movement.

“Beyond the numbers, what touched us most were the stories – the young entrepreneurs who made their first major sales, the brands that secured new partnerships, the women who rediscovered their confidence, and the sense of connection and hope that filled the room. That day, we realised that Imose was more than an event. It was becoming a movement. A community. A bridge to possibility,” she said.

“This December, Imose 1.1 returns with even more intention. We are expanding to one hundred vendors, strengthening our partnerships, hosting empowerment sessions, and curating a richer marketplace that celebrates enterprise, creativity, and culture. Our mission remains the same: to empower, to celebrate, and to support young people and women in Nigeria,” she added.

At the heart of Imose she stated further, is “a simple conviction that beauty is more than appearance, wellness is more than routine, fashion is more than fabric, and that enterprise, when supported, becomes a pathway to dignity, confidence, and economic transformation.”

Also, speaking at the briefing, renowned Nigerian fashion designer Mrs Ejiro Amos-Tafiri praised the initiative, describing the Imose Exhibition as a much-needed platform for women and young business owners.