Princess Adebowale Odutola is a real estate guru who studied law and politics. She is also the Creative Brand Director of TPS LUXURY, a brand synonymous with exotic bags, furniture and other accessories. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talks about her early life, carving a niche for her bags and more.
What was your early life like?
I was born into a royal family of seventeen children, the last of the girls. My father is from Southwest; my mom is from the middle belt. I grew up in Lagos State and so my background is English and Yoruba. I went to school like every other person, graduated from university and had a good life. It was those days when the departmental stores in Nigeria were like Selfridges. We had UTC right behind our house and it was an opportunity to have big deep ice cream and then I remember those days that we had Mintex, yam and sausages for breakfast. Lunch was jollof rice with chicken and ice cream. And further down Modupe Johnson in Surulere, there was big deep. We could buy big deep coated with chocolate. Then we thought growing up then was normal.
Apparently it was luxurious because later I found out that even those who were my classmates in school didn’t have the kind of pedigree that I had. My dad would drop me off at school with a Mercedes Benz. We travelled, went for summer vacations. Then it was not Marks and Spencers; it was Saint Michaels. We had the best things in life, but, above all, we had dignity, discipline and the business acumen. My dad was on the board of so many companies and he had a lot of friends. They were called the five business gurus that actually ran the show in Nigeria then. So, when I look back at where I am coming from and where I am today, I just see myself as the female version of my late father.
He was business-oriented, he was a strict disciplinarian, a devout Christian and above all, he was very neat. Everybody knew him to wear white. So, looking at where I am today and where I am coming from, I would say that my childhood has influenced a lot of what I do today. I have a niche for excellence and perfection. I am very elegant; I love elegance. I won’t say I am luxurious but I have taste for the good things of life. As a result, I work very hard.
How did TPS luxury start?
I started this business in 2013. Just like a big joke, I started with the scarves of my old boubous; you know, when you make a boubou and you have so much leftover. I brought out a whole pile and I was amazed. Then I started with just ankara bags, no leather. It was just ankara. Then I found out that the guy that was making my bags in Lekki market was using leather. I asked then where they got it and they said Mushin. We took off and went to Mushin. I went with two policemen; thinking of Mushin in those days that they could rob me. But guess what, I went into Mushin and nobody knew I was there. And I bought and bought lots of leather in one day. So, we started using just a bit of leather still with the ankara. Overtime, we started improving on our designs. And then I think I was just doing the regular Channel look that everyone was doing.
When there is a craze for something in Nigeria, there is hype and everybody just goes in one direction. So, I also went that way and it was Channel. At a point, I said to myself, why must I do what everybody is doing? Then I started drawing my designs. I also asked myself, how else do I carve a niche for my designs, and that was how I started naming them after Nigerian women, which is how Morin Desalu came into being. She was buying the Channel look designs from Ghana but they had the problem with the locks for that particular design. I had fixed two locks for her. So, I said, “Ma can I do you a bag that the locks would not fall out or have any problems?” She said yes, so she was one of the very few that I did the Channel lock for but I now improved on it, so that it does not look like the regular Channel. We quilt it, use leather and Ankara. That is why I named that particular design Morin Desalu. And then overtime, once I do a design and I notice that this particular person is my client or she has bought three or five bags, I also do another design and name after that person. So when people ask why my bags are named after millionaires, I say to them, they are not millionaires. They are actually women who also support women businesses. They don’t need to be millionaires.
The brand will be five this year, what does this mean to you?
Yes, we are going to be five years in July. When we were three years, we changed the narratives. And then we started doing more of the leather in the exterior with just a bit of fabrics outside. Of course, we stepped up our game. We don’t do hardware in Mushin anymore. We do it in Hong Kong. I got the nameplates which have TPS luxury and I got it manufactured by the same company that manufactures for Samsonite. We have been able to identify the big manufacturers in Asia to also do our nickel plates and our hardware because they are already tested and would last over ten years. All the hardware on our bags do not tarnish, they don’t fade and they don’t wear-out. And then it has been success all over.
What are some of the high-points for you?
In the last four years, I have gotten four awards. The first was in 2017, I got the Emerging Fashion Brand in April from Bellaafricana. The same 2017 in November, I got the FADAN President’s Special Recognition Award for our contributions to the fashion industry. In 2018, I won the Lead Grand Award for excellence in the fashion industry. Then in 2019 March, I won the Best Female Entrepreneur Award by City People publications. That again has motivated us. For me, it’s an inspiration. It is also the catch to keep stepping up on my game.
In the last two years, we have released three different designs. We released the latest on 23 February 2019, called the AAJ, the Annabel Adeyemi Johnson label, which has been a bestseller amongst the crème d’ la crème of this country. Just before then, we released the Yewande Zaccheus collection; she is also a woman entrepreneur. She is a dogged entrepreneur, extremely hardworking woman. And then we had the Ndidi Obioha collection. We also did the re-branding of our AAA collections, named after Adebisi Abiola. This means that I redesigned it. The initial design was so easy to copy, so I decided to make it complicated and better designed. It was beautiful and adorned with rose gold, rainbow collection with hardware.
What should your fans look for as the brand clocks five?
For our fifth anniversary, which we are doing in July, we are going to unveil the H I K, Hajia Ireti Kingibe collection. The big question here is why am I naming the bag after her? Hajia has touched my life in a way that even I can’t explain. Her younger sister carried my bag in Abuja and she saw and liked it. She told her, ‘I bought it at an event but I have the person’s number.’ So, her younger sister brought her to my place and that was it. That was how she walked into my life and ever since then it’s been a success story. Every bag she carried, everybody wanted it. So, I started stocking my bags in her house in Abuja without her charging me a dime.
She’s been selling for me without charging me a nickel and without putting a naira on my products. And today in Abuja we have sold nothing less than 50 bags between February and June this year. So, that is why I said how do you pay back, how do you show appreciation or gratitude to such a person? And then she was 65 years this year. She’s an ageless beauty. She’s beautiful in and out. So, I decided to design a bag that would be named after her. I have been working on the design for over two and half weeks and it will be unveiled at our fifth anniversary. And I can tell you, it’s a must-have for every woman of class in Nigeria. I know it would sell.
Apart from wanting to celebrate the Nigerian women like we do, we also like to celebrate the Nigerian culture. We have different fabrics that are synonymous with Nigerians. There is aso-oke, damask, adire and Ankara. So, we work with all these to support local content, which is why every product of ours, if it does not have an Ankara on the exterior it will have in the interior. And today by the grace of God, I have noticed that everybody wants to carry a TPS bag and they keep telling me that your bags are just different. There is something about them, they are not dull, they are not monotonous. They catch your attention. I also feel that what makes us feel or stand out is not only because of our hardware but because we also embellish. We hand bead, like Fendi does. But Fendi beads only on soft fabrics, we bead also on leather as well. So, our beaded works are different and I think they are one of our bestsellers.
So, you can imagine a bag that is beaded, it’s got leather on it, it’s got fabric and the hardware is super; you will want to buy it at any price. You don’t even want to price it, you just want to own one. And they are master pieces. As I always say, they are timeless luxury, timeless pieces that will withstand the fashion of 2025 to 2030. Even your children can own whatever bag you buy from us.
The leather we use in this country works well with our temperature; it does not peel like those designers bags. If you store them for too long, the designer bags peel. But those who bought my bag from the beginning are still using them today. I only always say to them, can you please buy a new season? From the beginning till now there is a world of difference, even in the finishing. We have tried to move from grace to glory. It’s been like a geometric progression for us.
We started from a humble beginning; we are still crawling but we are trying to crawl now with class, with elegance, with poise. So, that is what we have been doing.
Why did you focus on bags?
Good question. Initially, I was into real estates and, of course, I made money. Real estate and the real estate market were taking a downturn. It was becoming very difficult to get a client who wants to take a lease, it was that bad. There was a lot of ‘To let’ everywhere, there was a lot of ‘For sale’ everywhere. It was rather tough and at that point I was just living on my savings. I had a lot of briefs but there were no clients. It wasn’t just me. It was everybody. I told myself that I needed a business that would give me money every day and I would have passion for it. Then it was my birthday and someone gave me an Ankara bag. I looked at it and said ‘Father, is this an answer to my prayers?’ It looked like a good idea. I haven’t seen people doing this. It was at that point that I pulled out my scarves and I started.
And today, I say it with every sense of pride that I stand at par with big labels in the world because the hardware that they use is the same hardware that we are using. And ours is even more interesting, our bags have more content; they look more appealing. In those days, everyone wanted to carry a Gucci, Channel, Escada, Versace, Celine or Cavalli bag. But guess what, everyone wants to carry a Nigerian bag now. I named them after those who initially encouraged me with this business. They are those women who own bags that are worth ten thousand dollars; those who buy the very expensive designer bags in the world. They were the first set of women who were buying my bags. So, if you look at the run-down of the names of our brand ambassadors, they range from Adebisi Abiola, to Dame Adebola Williams, to Dame Abimbola Fashola, Morin Desalu, Olori Ladun Sijuwade, Hajia Bola Shagaya, Oludolapo Osinbajo, Annabel Adeyemi Johnson and Atinuke Onayiga.
Onayiga was a Permanent Secretary in Lagos State, in charge of primary healthcare. How much does a civil servant earn but she appreciated my bag and bought one. And then she bought a second one. Then I found out that this woman is in a line of occupation where she helps women in primary healthcare. So, she retired from Lagos State, I did a design and I named it after her. This is one of the beaded lines. So, you see when you see women who support women in business, women who uplift women, I always want to celebrate them without a doubt. You also have Yewande Zaccheus; she always does this show, where she encourages entrepreneurship. Oludolapo Osinbajo is the wife of our vice president. She’s a hand-crafter, she loves to knit and she loves to crochet. She loves gardening. She does everything with her hands and, as such, she encourages entrepreneurs; men and women. Her recent net project eventually gave birth to a day out with hand-crafters.
It’s amazing the kind of talents we have in this country and which is why I said that the recession brought out creativity in Nigerians. And now that there is going to be a ban on imported products, this is when made-in-Nigeria products should be fine-tuned to meet international standards. This is why we are ready for exports at TPS LUXURY. We have gotten our NEPC export licence; we have also gotten our trademarks stamp. We are ready to hit the world. By the time you know what is happening, which is what I am looking at, it will become a household name like Gucci. But we are not doing mass production here. We are doing bespoke bags. We have started what we call, ‘Build-your-own-bag.’ The client comes in and you pick your skin, pick your style and you tell us the kind of hardware that you want as well as your choice of color.
Let’s talk about the memorable moments in your life
That would be my first awards. It was a very keen competition between five labels and people had to vote. So, when I look back today, I say God….I won. I had never won an award in my life before this. Apart from all those awards that you win in school. When I was in secondary school, I won the commonwealth scholarship which was not an award, I earned it. I competed with 82 students from 82 schools in Ogun State. I went to Federal Government Girls College, Sagamu. We all competed for just one scholarship and I won it. But this one was the first time that I was competing for an award. So, those are good memories. I think life itself is a good memory for me. I have also had my fair share of ups and downs. I feel that my life is a testimony.
