Order once. It fits every time.
Design Shark International is a production hub and fashion technology company for Lagos designers, stylists and small teams launching a collection.
Send us one design. We check the fit, send a firm price within 48 hours and confirm your delivery date in writing.
Then we update you at every stage, and if the sample is right, the same team runs your batch.
Founding designers get the ₦15,000 fit profile free. We reply within 24 hours. Firm price within 48.
Four ways to try us.
Begin small and see how it feels: one sampled design, a full batch, or just your measurements. Whichever you pick, it starts with the same short brief, and you get a firm price within 48 hours.
Sample Sprint
From ₦120,000 per designBest for: a first collection, or testing us before you commit.Start a sample →Batch production
From ₦18,000 per piece, runs of 20, 30 or 50Best for: designers with an approved sample and orders to fill.Plan a batch →Fit profile
₦15,000 once, free for founding designersBest for: stylists and tailors who take many clients' measurements.Get Mezer →Founding slot
Free ₦15,000 fit profile. Five slots a monthBest for: designers ready to grow with us, month by month.Apply →Rather talk first? Message us on WhatsApp — we reply within 24 hours.
From one design to a full run.
Most sampling mistakes begin with a brief that can be read two ways. These four steps are built so nobody has to guess.
Give us one clear brief
Pieces, deadline, fabric and fit. It reaches the factory as a single set of instructions, not a scrolling chat.
Measure once, we draft your pattern
Capture measurements with Mezer. We draft your pattern from them and keep it on file, so every order is cut from the same block.
See a sample first
We make and fit-check your design in Lagos before anything runs in volume.
Approve, then scale
When the sample is right, the batch goes into production, from small runs to volume.
Measure once. Keep it. Use it again.
Mezer is Design Shark International’s AI measurement app, and the MVP of our 3D Fashion Design Software Suite. Capture your body measurements, review and save them, and share them with participating fashion professionals. Available on iOS and Android.
Capture
Use camera-assisted measurement or enter your measurements manually.
Review and save
Check your measurements and keep them in one place for future orders.
Share and use
Send them to participating fashion professionals when you order.
Camera-assisted measurements are estimates. Review important measurements before garment production; manual entry is available where more precision is needed.
For fashion professionals
Request a customer’s measurements remotely and receive them in a structured digital format, ready to start an order.
Mezer for professionals →
Where your design gets made.
Our own production floor, in Lagos. The team that cuts and checks your sample is the team that makes your batch, so there is no chain of agents between you and the people sewing your pieces. A 500-machine smart factory is in development, built to take this same standard to scale.
Where we’re going.
Design Shark International is a garment house at its core — and a fashion technology company by design. The vision: to be Africa’s pioneer fashion technology company, built on five businesses that share one standard of quality.
DSI Technology
Mezer, our AI body-measurement app, is the MVP of a full 3D Fashion Design Software Suite — designs move from sketch to 3D, so size and fit are settled before a piece is cut. Every scan also feeds a standardized African size chart.
DSI Manufacturing
A 500-machine smart factory for Lagos, in development with our partners Wazir Advisors — world-class capacity, powered by AI, and a faster, cheaper alternative to sending production abroad.
DSI Fashion Designer Search
The talent search that drew 500+ applications in its first month returns as a television series, travelling all six geopolitical zones to find and scale marketable designers.
DSI Retail
A data-driven e-commerce platform for standardized, locally made fashion — with AI and AR virtual try-on and size prediction. In development.
DSI Faculty of Fashion
An online platform teaching the fashion workforce digitalized production methods, built on partnerships with fashion schools and technical academies.
We have found, selected and launched designers before.
- On 3 September 2022, the first Design Shark Fashion Designer Search drew more than 500 applications in a single month.
- A five-person industry panel chose three designers. We featured them in the press and sent them, all expenses paid, to Glitz Africa Fashion Week in Accra.
- The search is being reworked and will return as a television series across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. The factory and Mezer are what let us do it at scale.
Led by a working designer and a trade veteran.
Design Shark International is led by people who sit between the design studio and the factory floor. Your sample, your fit and your delivery date are decided here in Lagos, next to the production line.
Wole Akande
Chairman
Co-founder and Chairman. Also leads MV International, a marketing and international trade consultancy based in Maryland, USA.
Sally Julcit Bawa
CEO
Co-founder and CEO. Founder of Lozania Nigeria and Creative Director of the Sally Bawa label, trained at ESMOD, and a one-time winner and two-time nominee for Best Emerging Designer at the ELOY awards. Leads the Lagos factory and the Mezer team.
Leadership works directly with the production floor and the Mezer product team — the people who approve your sample are the people who answer for the batch that follows it.
Send us a design to test.
One form for founding slots, sample sprints and batch production. Tell us what you're making and we reply within 24 hours and send a firm price within 48.
- 24hreply to every brief
- 5founding slots a month
- 1team from sample to batch