ALAE Honours the Merchants Behind Austria’s Finest Lace in Nigeria

At Nigerian weddings, the quickest way to spot quiet wealth is fabric. Before the music swells, before the food lands, Austrian lace does the announcing. Heavy. Precise. Unmistakable.

On Wednesday, February 11, 2026, that fabric took centre stage at Sky Restaurant, Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island. The Austrian Lace Appreciation Event, known as ALAE, returns for its second edition, invitation-only and deliberately intimate.

The premise is as follows: the Austrian Embassy’s Commercial Section in Lagos, working with lace manufacturers from Vorarlberg, is honouring Nigerian merchants who have sustained this trade for decades. These sellers keep Austrian lace present, desirable, and legitimate in Nigeria’s crowded textile market.

This matters because the relationship is old. Since the 1960s, embroidered lace from western Austria has shaped Nigerian ceremonial dressing. Import bans came and went, and tastes shifted, but the lace remained, anchored by merchants who understood provenance and protected it.

The thing is, these traders rarely get public credit. Normally called the Lace Ladies, they operate a form of custodianship. They teach buyers how to spot originals, refuse shortcuts, and carry reputations built across generations, not seasons. ALAE exists to formalise that trust, with certificates of excellence serving as legitimation in a market flooded with imitations.

This year adds texture. Five Austrian manufacturers, Riedmann, Oscar, HOH, Scheffknecht, and Amann, will showcase new materials. Nigerian designers translate them. Lanre Da Silva Ajayi brings polish. Aramanda brings restraint. Younger designers push the lace into new silhouettes.

Barbara Lehninger, the Austrian Embassy’s Commercial Counsellor, calls it an elevated celebration. Hosted again by Ify Igwe, with live performances and diplomatic attendance, the evening is there to blend ceremony with ease.

These all make more sense given that nearly half of Austria’s lace exports still come to Nigeria. It is proof that this trade survives because merchants here refused to treat excellence as a sinecure.