When I’m trying to define African luxury, and this is not an exclusive definition, it has to benefit the person who’s buying it in terms of its value… - Reni Folawiyo

I taught myself to make furniture and then started a furniture factory that still exists. But I realized I wanted to be around creative people. I started to travel within Africa, and discovered people making fashion and design pieces that were contemporary iterations of what you see traditionally—not what we would call contemporary in the Western sense, but in our context. And I thought that was very intriguing.

I think we needed a symbol of what is now called the African renaissance, a showpiece that is unapologetic in its approach about who we are today,...that we have people who make and consume luxury and that we have done it all by ourselves.

I used to spend a lot of time with artists and designers and I had a lot of friends that were doing creative things and I enjoyed spending time with them.