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    By Kimberly Wilson ·Updated April 14, 2026 Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

    If you didn’t know Grace Ladoja before, you do now. 

    The Nigerian creative and Homecoming Festival founder just made history as the first African woman to design a signature Nike shoe. And she once walked to school for 60 days straight just to save up enough to buy the very silhouette she designed.

    Splitting her time between London and Lagos, Ladoja built her reputation as a creative director and manager in the UK music industry before turning her attention back to the continent full time. She holds an MBE, a distinction awarded by the British Crown, and has been building Homecoming since 2017. 

    What started as a local Lagos gathering has grown into one of the most referenced cultural festivals on the continent, bringing together musicians, designers, athletes and creatives from across Africa and the diaspora each year. This year’s ninth edition ran April 2 through 7 in Lagos, and it turned out to be the biggest one yet.

    Grace Ladoja Makes History As The First African Woman To Design A Nike Signature Shoe

    The shoe, a reworked Air Max Plus known locally in Nigeria as the “Cobra,” comes in two colorways, Pan-African and African Sunrise. The Pan-African colorway runs in black with red and green accents. African Sunrise comes in safety orange with the same accent shades, the same cultural DNA, just in a different light. The standard mesh is gone, replaced with a textured material inspired by the African sponge, and the plastic cage structure has been pulled away from the upper and rebuilt as a separate layer on top. Threaded through the laces are detachable charms referencing the cowrie shell and the Nigerian eagle, both symbols with deep meaning in Nigerian culture. Nigeria’s outline appears along the shoe in green and gold.

    Ladoja has had a working relationship with Nike for over ten years, so this moment was years in the making. The shoes were available exclusively at the festival for $190 ,and the campaign behind them was fully African. Behind the lens and in front of it, local Lagos photographers and talent kept the whole thing rooted on the continent. 

    Ladoja has been in sneaker culture since she was a teenager, interning at Crooked Tongues before most people knew what Homecoming was. That’s nearly a decade of groundwork before her name ever went on a Nike shoe.

    African women have been shaping global culture for years without always getting the flowers for it, and this is the perfect start.

    The post Grace Ladoja Makes History As The First African Woman To Design A Nike Signature Shoe appeared first on Essence.

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