Chief Executive Officer of Kiobi wears, Obi-Egbedi Oghenekioja, has clarified opinions that fashion designers are the same as tailors, saying while fashion designers are people who create designs and are inspired by things they see, tailors are a backbone to the fashion designer.
Oghenekioja, who is a haute couture, also said without tailors, a fashion designer could create designs, but fashion designers need someone to do the job, and that is when tailors come in.
He also fingered inadequate power supply and inadequate textile mills as some of the problems faced in the fashion industry.
According to him, electricity was a big issue because fashion designers had to start running their machines on fuel, thereby increasing cost.
His words: “Nigerians are making a very big impact in the fashion industry, especially with the help of the entertainers from the music industry and comedies. They are trying to push the fashion designers as much as possible to be in the limelight.
“People who become fashion designers have to go through training because it is not a day job that one would just wake up to say one is a fashion designer. There has to be a career, there has to be a push, there has to be a platform, there has to be exposure or information which cannot be received from anywhere. They have to attend some sort of fashion school per se.
“It is to this end that we run a fashion school. In the state university and polytechnic, they also have fashion courses.”
On challenges in the fashion industry, he said: “We suffer from inadequate power supply. Electricity is a very big challenge to us because we have to start running on fuel, and the cost affects us. There is also the issue of inadequate textile mills. We don’t have skillful men, there are some machines that you have, but there is nobody to operate them.
On how the exchange rate has affected business, he said: “The price increase is a very big blow because you can go to a market today and tomorrow morning, the price of an item bought the day before has changed. There was a job I did recently. I charged around N4 million for it, but after the whole cost of production, it turned out to be over N5 million. I made a loss.”
On the business of fashion designing, he said: “Talking about customers, the fact is that every business has its own customer base. For me, I normally work with top influencers such as comedians and musicians. In that way, I am able to assess some level of customers that suit my products and the services.
“For anyone who is coming into the fashion industry, there is a lot of money in the fashion industry, but it depends on your market value: what you give and what you take. Becoming a fashion designer is not a day job, it is not a day job. It requires a lot of energy, time and patience.
“When it comes to importations, I would say the fashion industry is going through a lot right now. They still feel the more the importation the more international the brand is, the more valuable. Most people prefer to get imported materials rather than those produced in Nigeria.
“If you are importing from outside, they don’t get a suitable design for them. And that is why we are coming in now to see that when they import, the thing does not see them, and they fall back to us.”
