Reason fashion designers are not tailors — Oghenekioja

By Vera Opia

Obi-Egbedi Oghenekioja is a Delta State born haute couture. In this interview, 

the fashion designer speaks on the challenges faced in the industry, what distinguishes fashion designers from tailors, among other interesting issues. 

What is fashion design and what is the difference between fashion design and tailoring?

Talking about the fashion industry, the fashion designers are people who create designs and are inspired by things they see. They go around, create designs and draft patterns. Tailors are more like a backbone to the fashion designer. Without tailors, a fashion designer can create designs, but fashion designers need someone out there to do the job, and that is when tailors come in. Tailors do the job, which includes sewing.

Let us look at the fashion industry in Nigeria in the last decade or two, do you feel we have really grown over the years, especially as it concerns fashion?

We 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.

Are there mandatory steps someone who wants to acquire training in fashion design needs  to go through?

For sure, they have to 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.

Do we have this in Delta State?

Yes, we do. We run a fashion school. In the state university and polytechnic, they also have fashion courses. 

What are some of the challenges fashion designers face in the country?

There are always challenges. In the fashion industry, 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.

Has the rise in the dollar affected your business?

Yes. 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.

How lucrative is the fashion business, what is your customer base like and can somebody really sustain a living in this industry?

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.

How appreciative are Nigerians towards our designs?

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.

Are you saying that those companies overseas mass produce these stuffs because it is quite cheaper than what we have here?

Yes, that’s why I told you that we have no textile mills to produce massively. They produce at a lesser cost and faster production.

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