What the Akwa Catalogue is
Each Catalogue listing pairs a premium customer-facing render with a structured tailor-ready brief: silhouette, fabric behaviour, trim placement, construction sequence, and fit intent. Buy a licence, receive the brief by email and in your Akwa account, and send the brief to your tailor or studio to build the garment.
The Catalogue is the curated counterpart to Akwa Custom Design. Custom Design is for customers who want to brief an outfit from scratch. The Catalogue is for customers who want to browse, pick, and commission a design Akwa has already designed.
Heritage categories in the catalogue
Akwa covers nine cultural domains as first-class design contexts, with construction grammar and identity anchors engineered at the design layer.
- Nigerian heritage. Yoruba aso-ebi, Igbo bridal, Edo coral, Hausa-Fulani engagement looks, Efik wrapper sets, Tiv stripe formalwear.
- African heritage (broader). Ghanaian kente and batakari, Senegalese boubou, Kenyan kitenge formalwear, Ethiopian habesha kemis, Akan ceremonial.
- Modest fashion. Modest occasion wear, layering systems, modest bridal, hijab-friendly silhouettes engineered as primary intent, not as an afterthought adaptation.
- Gulf and GCC. Abaya cuts, Talli edge work, kandura formality registers, kaftan party wear, contemporary khaleeji evening.
- South Asian bridal. Lehenga, sharara, Anarkali, gharara, Nikkah looks, Walima reception wear, mehndi function styling.
- Turkish bridal. Bindallı, bridal kaftans, Turkish reception silhouettes that hold the regional drape grammar.
- Indonesian heritage. Kebaya register, batik tailoring, traditional and contemporary kebaya bridal.
- Naija Meets Oyibo (fusion). Diaspora-coded fusion: heritage tailoring grammar with contemporary Western or global silhouettes. Built to read on both sides of the cultural register.
- Global modest contemporary. Western silhouettes adapted to modest specs at the design layer, with layering and coverage engineered in.
Licensing tiers
Every catalogue design is available under three licence types so the right rights structure exists for the use case.
- Personal use. Build the design for yourself, your wedding, your family event. From €7.99 for Standard / Contemporary garments; from €12.99 for Cultural Heritage; from €19.99 for Couture and Bridal. Personal-use pricing is protected at every plan tier so accessibility is preserved.
- Commercial licence. Build the design for sale through your brand, your boutique, your atelier. Volume-tier pricing applies; multi-unit production rights, attribution to Akwa as design source.
- Exclusive licence. Non-exclusive, standard exclusive, extended exclusive, or full assignment. Take a design off the public catalogue for your brand for a defined territory and term. Useful for capsule, signature, and collection-tier creative.
Full pricing structure and seat counts on the pricing page.
What you get with each design
- The premium render. Customer-facing image of the garment as photographed editorial, not flat illustration.
- The tailor-ready brief. Structured construction document: silhouette, fabric behaviour, trim placement, construction sequence, fit intent, cultural context. Engineered for tailor execution.
- Optional Tech Pack add-on. Production-grade specification: multi-view flats, structured BOM, spec sheet with measurement points, grading table, QC checklist, and four-eye AI reviewer notes. For brands commissioning capsule, signature, or collection-scale work. See Tech Pack.
How designs reach you
Catalogue purchases deliver instantly. The brief and render arrive by email within minutes; both are also available in your Akwa account on web and in the iOS and Android apps. Designs you have licensed are saved permanently to your account.
If you want a tailor to build the design, the Akwa Tailor Directory lists tailors and ateliers who work from Akwa briefs across Nigeria, Turkey, the Gulf, the UK, Europe, and North America.
Custom Design vs Catalogue, when to use each
Use the Catalogue when you have an event coming up and want to browse curated heritage designs, pick one that fits the occasion, and commission it as is. Use Custom Design when you have a specific vision that needs to be briefed from scratch, or when you want to remix a heritage context with a contemporary silhouette your way.
Many customers do both: brief a Custom Design for the main event, license a Catalogue piece for a related function. The same Tailor Brief format underpins both, so a single tailor can build across the order.
Who the catalogue is for
- Customers planning weddings, engagements, owambe, asoebi parties, Nikkah and Walima receptions, Eid, naming ceremonies, traditional ceremonies, and other heritage occasion wear.
- Asoebi coordinators needing a shared design across many bodies and cities, with the same brief sent to multiple tailors.
- Diaspora customers commissioning Nigerian, Gulf, or South Asian couture from a tailor abroad, where the brief carries the cultural construction grammar across the cultural distance.
- Indie brands and boutiques licensing Catalogue designs commercially for a curated collection without a full in-house design studio.