Cities like New York, Milan, and Paris are the hot spots for fashion events and trends. But who would have thought that another destination for fashion would be Lagos, Nigeria? Heavy buzz has been surrounding this city with new trends, 77 designers, and over 1500 people that came to Fashion Week in Lagos. Some of the names included supermodel Alek Wek, British designer, Ozwald Boateng, model Dudley O'Shaughnessy.

"Everyone knows it's New York, London, Paris and Milan -- and we see this as the fifth destination now. We're hoping to make Lagos a fashion destination, part of the fashion season," said Penny McDonald, organizer of the Arise Magazine Fashion Week.

"It's the vibrancy, the colors. We feel it's Africa's capital," McDonald continued. "Lagos women in particular, they dress like no other. They love haute couture. They look the part, they get fashion. Where else would you host such an event?"

Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and last year's fashion week event drew in designers from all over the world--including India, Jamaica,Thailand, and the US.

"You wouldn't have got them coming from as far away as America if there wasn't a buzz around this event," McDonald said.

Caterina Bortolussi, a Nigerian-based, Italian designer, debuted her line for the first time in Lagos using non-professional models she found off the street.

"It's an amazing opportunity to learn, to challenge yourself, to network," she said. "It's not easy to do things down here."

Regarding African designers, they are "very proud of being African," Bortolussi said. "Fashion is a way to bring a message of positivity. People usually look at Africa in a skeptical way, a place that needs to be helped. But fashion creates a vehicle to showcase Africa in a different way."

The African designs shown at the exhibit are similar in that they stem from African textile traditions, but other than that, they are very different and share no commonality. "No one designer produced the same look as another, which really showcases the vastness of the continent," McDonald said. "People were surprised the collections were so varied."

Take a look at some of the hot designs below!