By Pius Owhoavwodua
INTRODUCTION
Every year, the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA) transforms into Nigeria’s most watched fashion theatre. Before the nominations are announced, before any award is lifted, the red carpet has already declared its own winners. Hashtags trend, stylists and designers are celebrated, but behind the flashing cameras and viral moments, a legal conversation is quietly building, one that the Nigerian fashion industry can no longer afford to avoid.
Immediately after the event, there were multiple reports of designers calling out celebrities on Instagram for taking their original sketches to cheaper tailors. The nature of the disputes range from celebrities threatening lawsuits over credit disputes, fast-fashion copycats listing replicas of custom gowns before the award ceremony even concludes, and beaders demanding recognition they were contractually denied. These are not mere social media tantrums. Each of these disputes demonstrate the legal and regulatory gaps in Nigeria’s fashion industry.
This article examines the intellectual property dimensions of custom fashion creation in Nigeria, from the standpoint of the designer who conceives the work, the celebrity who commissions it, the team who builds it, and the copycat who steals it.
I. The Industry Behind the Outfit: Nigeria’s Fashion Economy
Nigeria’s fashion market generates an estimated $2.5 billion to $6 billion annually, making it one of the most economically viable creative sectors in the country. The broader figures place the industry’s total contribution to Nigeria’s GDP at roughly $6.1 billion. The apparel market alone is projected to reach $10 billion in revenue by 2025, with expected annual growth of 7.25% through 2029. Nigeria’s fashion eCommerce market, valued at over $423 million in 2024, is forecast to grow to $579.9 million by 2028.
Nigerian fashion designers and a new wave of fashion innovators are increasingly showing up on international runways, landing cross -border retail partnerships, and exporting finished garments to buyers all over the world, yet for all this hard work, the fashion industry remains structurally fragile. Despite billions in annual consumption and fashion contributing a modest share to GDP the sector is heavily reliant on imported textiles and finished garments, and a significant portion of its activity remains informal and unregistered. Intellectual property theft from local copycats and international fashion giants alike continue to cost Nigerian designers revenue they are entitled to and creative credit they have earned. This is the industry the law must protect.
II. Buying the Dress Is Not Buying the Idea
One of the most persistent misconceptions in Nigeria’s fashion industry is the belief that commissioning and paying for a custom piece transfers all associated rights to the commissioner. It does not. Under the Copyright Act 2022, the “author” of a work in this context, the designer is the first owner of copyright in that work. Monetary consideration for a bespoke gown purchases the physical garment. It does not purchase the right to reproduce the design, authorize others to copy it, or launch a clothing line modelled on it.
The AMVCA 2024 Dispute: A Live Illustration
Few recent events illustrate the complexity of fashion intellectual property in the AMVCA context more vividly than the 2024 dispute involving Ghanaian actress Nana Akua Addo and Nigerian fashion designer Ezinne Olivia. Following the awards, Ezinne made social media posts asserting that she had made Nana’s AMVCA outfit. Nana’s lawyers responded with a letter demanding an apology, the removal of all posts crediting Ezinne with the outfit, a published apology in two Nigerian newspapers within 48 hours, and threatened N50 million in damages for falsehood and reputational injury.
The public reaction ranged from amusement to bewilderment — “for ordinary dress?” was a common refrain online. But the legal questions raised were anything but ordinary. Who made the dress? Was Ezinne a lead designer, a stylist, a beader, or an assembler of pieces sourced elsewhere? If she contributed creative skill to a garment, does she have a right to claim joint-authorship? Can a celebrity obtain a court order to suppress a designer’s promotion of their own work? These are live questions under Nigerian law, and they arise directly from the absence of clear contractual documentation before the commission begins.
Nana Addo dress saga has now extended into a second edition: at the 2026 AMVCA, the actress’s new architectural gown by Nigerian designer – AbbasWoman attracted a claim from Paris-based ALmée Couture, which alleged the design was lifted from a cancelled commission, an original sketch and concept that was refunded to the client, only for the design to be reproduced without authorization. The same actress. Two editions. Two separate intellectual property controversies. The pattern is not coincidence; it is the direct consequence of an industry that creates without contracts.
III. Ownership by Creation: Why the Designer Holds the Rights the Celebrity Cannot Buy.
The starting point of any fashion intellectual property analysis in Nigeria is the Copyright Act 2022. Under this legislation, an original custom dress, conceived, sketched, and constructed by a designer, can qualify as an “artistic work,” attracting automatic copyright protection from the moment of creation and fixation in a definite medium. No registration is required for protection to arise.
The Sketch and the Garment
Two distinct copyright interests ordinarily arise in the creation of a custom AMVCA gown. The first is the designer’s fashion illustration: a sketch is protected as an artistic work from the moment the pencil lifts off the page. The second is the physical garment itself, where it exhibits sufficient originality and artistic craftsmanship to qualify for protection.
The practical implication of sketch protection is significant and frequently misunderstood. When a celebrity dissatisfied with pricing or timelines, takes a designer’s sketch to a cheaper tailor for recreation, they are not simply exercising consumer choice. They are, in legal terms, reproducing a copyrighted work without the copyright owner’s consent. This constitutes infringement under the Copyright Act 2022, regardless of whether the original designer was paid a consultation fee, and regardless of whether the celebrity considers the sketch “their idea” because they described a mood.
What can the Designer Do?
Every custom commission is a legal transaction before it is a creative one, and no designer should engage in it without a written Agreement. The Agreement should, at minimum, define the scope of the commission, set out the ownership of all intellectual property created during the engagement, address the designer’s right to use photographs of the finished work for portfolio and promotional purposes, restrict the client from authorising third-party reproduction of the design, and specify what happens if the commission is terminated mid-production.
The Work-for-Hire Clause and Copyright Assignment
If a celebrity genuinely co-designed a look, contributing not merely a mood board or vague references, but actual structural and creative input, and wishes to retain exclusive intellectual property rights over that design for future commercial use, the mechanism for achieving this is clear: a written Agreement must either classify the work as a “work made for hire” or include an express assignment of copyright. Without one of these two instruments, the designer retains the right to use that silhouette again, sell it to another client, or license it for reproduction. The celebrity, however magnificently they wore it, holds nothing beyond the physical garment. If you intend to own the idea, put it in writing before the beads are sewn.
Joint Authorship Under the Copyright Act 2022
Section 108 of the Copyright Act 2022 provides for joint authorship where a work is created by two or more authors and the contribution of each author is not distinct from the contribution of the other author or authors. In the fashion context, this requires a careful analysis. A beader who executes a pre-specified bead pattern is likely not a joint author, they are a skilled craftsperson performing a technical function. A beader who independently conceived the embellishment pattern, or who substantially modified the designer’s original idea in ways that shaped the final work, has a stronger claim to joint authorship. The line is not always obvious, and the absence of contracts makes it even harder to draw.
The Mass Production Question: Copyright vs. Industrial Design
Where a designer creates a piece intended for multiple reproductions broadly, more than 50 copies, the appropriate protection vehicle shifts. The Patents and Designs Act provide for the registration of industrial designs: the visual features of a product (shape, configuration, pattern, or ornamentation) that make it appealing to the eye. Registration under this framework confers a monopoly right to use the design commercially for a fixed period. For fashion pieces, inherently one-of-a-kind, copyright remains the stronger and more natural shield. For a designer who intends to retail versions of a signature silhouette, industrial design registration should be pursued alongside copyright.
V. The Legal Consequences of Copying Designs
Under the Copyright Act 2022, reproducing a protected artistic work or a substantial part of it, without the copyright owner’s consent constitutes infringement. The test for substantiality is qualitative, not merely quantitative. A copycat who reproduces the distinctive architectural shape, the signature embellishment pattern, or the characteristic silhouette of a designer’s work may infringe even if they alter the colorway or change minor details.
CONCLUSION
The AMVCA red carpet is more than a fashion showcase. It is a live demonstration of the economic, cultural, and legal stakes of creative work in Nigeria. Behind every custom gown that trends on social media, there is a designer whose livelihood depends on whether her creation will be respected, credited, and protected. Behind every celebrity look, there is
a question of who made what, who owns what, and what was agreed. Behind every morning-after copycat post, there is a violation that the law can address but only if the industry is organized enough to use it.
The outfit on that red carpet is not just fabric. It is intellectual property, economic value, cultural expression, and legal territory. It is time Nigerian law treated it as all four.
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