Seye Joseph
Not to be caught with the reality of uselessness again after spending one year at home jobless, Kuku Adeyemi who studied Physics Electronics at Federal University of Technology Akure(FUTA) went to enroll at One Stop Celebrated Fashion Institute to acquire relevant knowledge in fashion designs.
According to Adeyemi who narrated his account said that the reality dawn on him when after graduating for about a year and he could not get a single job despite his several applications to companies for a paid employment.
“I really wish I had known this immediately I graduated, I would not have wasted that long year without doing anything but now, I have spent closed to a year here I have gathered so much knowledge that can helpme to be more responsible to myself and to the society.
Solarin Kofoworola, another apprentice at the fashion institute also recounted her own experience she has been learning in the institute.
Kofoworola who just finished secondary school said that her father brought her to the institute when she told her parents she would like to learn a trade in fashion designing.
“I came here in October. I have learnt a lot from here. As a beginner, I can make skirt, I can draft pattern, I can sow anything but I need to be helped in cutting them for me to sow”
Before resuming at the institute, she said she has passion for fashion and she like joining things together when she was young.
Explaining how she had been involved in training and retraining young people in the fashion industry, Sola Babatunde, the Founder and Principal OSC College of Fashionsaid that the first thing she always tell any apprentice that comes to the institute for training is the fact that she was not training them to be a fashion designer or a road side tailor but training them to own a fashion company, to be a successful entrepreneur in fashion industry, which they can venture into different aspects of fashion industry, be it textile design, pattern making, manager in a fashion companies.
“When they come, the first question I usually ask them is why they want to do fashion, most of them don’t really know the reason why they want to do it, some want to do it based on what they see on TV, some want do it because their friends are doing it”
“Everybody’s eye is only on sowing, so our own school is different, we teach you how to see the other areas, and not just be a tailor or a glorified fashion designer”, she said.
Babatundewho studied Banking and Finance at Ogun State University, now OlabisiOnabanjo University said she knew that she would not end up in the bank but to find her own business of choice that will give her time with more flexibility that will make her work harder, longer, andpay less.
One of the things she admires so much is personal development. According to her, she said she had won several business entrepreneurial training, won scholarships from the United StateDepartment of State.
“I did business training in America, EDC and PAN Atlantic University here in Nigeria. I have also been part of the Cherie Blair road to growth scholars. I know that without running a business properly you would not be able to succeed, especially in Nigeria”
On how she got herself into fashion industry as an instructor and executive director, she said what she’s doing is like a call for her.
Babatunde said she had a dream that she had a big school with different departments, and we were teaching garment making, makeup, and hair making, though, I didn’t know how to do anything about fashion at that time.
“Few days later of having that dream, I stopped the job I was doing at that time and started to learn fashion. When I finished learning, I had 30 clothes waiting for me to sow, so I made the clothes and used the money to buy new machines, and that has been the story of how I made money to buy machines for the others to work with us in our school in 2006 but I started officially in 2009”, she revealed.
She said from 2009 that the company started, she had trained and graduated over 2000 students.
“We had trained people who had gone out to win several awards, people who as well also have opened their own fashion schools, we have sold our clothes to different people as well, people that didn’t know that those clothes were made by me, there are people I see when I go out and they are wearing our outfits because we do ready to wear, we also do wait to measure but we stopped that to focus more on contract manufacturing and our ready to wear line”
“We produce for other designers and that has been a big one for us, we do manufacture for alumni, we sell our clothes even to different stores, so it’s been good and we have several celebrities and top people.Top known designers, that we were the one that make their clothing line”, she said.
For now, Babatunde said that the fashion institute is not big yet, “though people think it’s big, but we are not yet where we dreamt yet, so the aim has always be to have a massive mass production company and a training school that can supply the skilled labour for those who are willing to employ them; or if they are going to be self-employed, I have realized that garmenting, ready to wear is the future for Nigeria fashion, so that those who do ready to wear are well paid”
With the country population of almost 200 million people, she said that the country does not have enough fashion designers and experts.
“What majority are offering are tailoring service and not ready to wearbut that is not what we should be doing, there is value of change in fashion; from the cotton farmer to the person who turns it into the treadmills, to the textile companies, to the manufacturers who make them into clothes, and the retailer, the middlemen and the wholesalers are also there, so we have to find where we need to be to create exceptional services in the country and be on global platform”.
She called on anybody who wants to learn the fashion business not to rush to be their own boss but to work for other established designers first because they can’t just graduate and open their stores.
“You can’t be a CEO of a one man room machine company, you have to go and work for someone to gather experience, and that is whywe post our students to several places where they can learn more in head pattern design, pattern maker and managerial skills.”
“So they work for a time before they now live to stand on their own, but we have a few that did not listen but they learn on the job, they see all the hardship that involve, and some of them come back to say that I think I need to work with someone first”
She called on government to support business owners to ease ways of doing business in the country.
Babatunde said that loans should be disbursed to people that really need it and not just everybody that has personal needs
“When it comes to the issue of tax, the tax consultants are the ones who make the money, they overbill you, it is not just by saying we are going to do empowerment and also they put the wrong people in charge of those their support programs”, she urged.
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