The Fashion industry has come to be an indispensable part ofthe economies of countries of the world. This is proven so as fashion is lovely. Fashion is life. Fashion makes the world beautiful and colourful. Beyond the scintillating outlook on clothes and outfits seen in our society today, a lot of creativity inputs by talented individuals set the frame offstage. In celebrating these creative minds who task their creative skills to give our society surreal features, Encore Africa wades intothis ubiquitous creative industry, by having aclose-up chat with a fashion designer with the brand name, TÉLÒ-THE-BRAND.
Any story behind your brand name TÉLÒ-the-brand?
Actually the whole idea came from someone very close and special to me, it’s actually, Tailor-the-brand. When I just started my brand, I was really thinking about a name to use, I was thinking probably I should use Ore The Tailor that I was already using on twitter, because people already knew me with that name, I was hearing that people use their names and add ‘the-tailor’ behind it. So, I talked to my closest pal about it and he said he was going to think about it, then he came up with the idea of Tailor the brand…it came from our regular conversations like tailor your brand to satisfy people’s fashion desires to make their style a reality. He doesn’t want it to look like a foreign brand, so he said he wanted it to give this subtle information that is a bit traditional (like it’s talking about our Nigerian fashion as well), turning it to Yoruba instead of saying Tailor, TÉLÒ that makes it Yoruba should be used.
Mehnn…So your closest pal was the inspiration?
Yeah he was the inspiration, everything just aligned from our convos. Way before I even had like a graphics or stuff he had already been designing graphics, and sending me pictures. But obviously he was just telling me this is how it’s going to look like, this is the whole thing. You gett(sic).
What inspires your design? Can you share your process from initiation to execution?
Are you saying like what inspires your outfits?
Actually, I just sew for people based on their demands. But very soon, there will be a ready-to-wear brand (under my own brand) where I can execute all the fashion designs in my head.
That’s beautiful. So someone can just walk in to pick his/her size
Yeahh(sic).
How does your ideation come about? Do you design clothes based on client’s orders many atimes, intuition or just trends?
Based on client’s orders and trends, because most of them follow the trends.
So for clients that offer to underpay for the dress they request, do you mostly reject or do some for just relationship sake?
Of course, I reject. But it’s harder when it’s from family and close friends. But I reject anyway.
That’ll be definitely challenging really. What are your biggest challenges running a fashion brand in Nigeria so far?
Truth is there are so many challenges. Feeling like you’re not good enough or like you haven’t reached that stage you hope to reach, trying to follow the trends too, because you just have to keep upgrading yourself. Clients trying to underprice your work I mean, there are so so(sic) many really.
Twitter and Instagram: @TeloTheBrand
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