The Fashion ecosystem: The play, display and the players

OSANYI Essel in 2019 submitted that “fashion is inseparable from life.” It is in the daily living of people that the essence of fashion and its production emerge.

This week’s column will start on a comical note but with lessons to learn about the nature of client-customer interaction. It is a textual conversation between Pastor Tunde Olanipekun and his Tailor. The Pastor stated with this preface, “Tailors are specialists in disappointing people. You may not get your cloth until after the ceremony is over. I am still struggling to get a garment I am supposed to use for my birthday on Aug 1st earlier this year.”

Here is a breakdown of the text messages between the Pastor and the Tailor

Pastor: When are you sending my dress? Samuel said he has paid for the sewing.

Tailor: I will send it this week sir. Am really sorry sir. I will send it on Friday sir

 Pastor: Let me know when and time .Have a good day

Tailor: Okay Sir

Pastor: 👍🏾. I hope it will not be as big as the other one . That was a little too big

Tailor: No sir

Pastor: Still expecting your call o and the outfit. I did not get your call o. I will need the dress for a function tomorrow. Please do all you can to send it? Thanks. I intended to sew some more and perhaps introduce you to some of my friends. Is this how you will be delaying?

After a few days

Pastor: What’s happening???? Today is Thursday o!

Tailor: Yes sir

Pastor:  So which day is the cloth coming? Today is Friday. We have only Saturday for this week you promised o. What is the matter with my cloth o?

Pastor: Hellooo?? Good morning, please when are you sending the second outfit to the Redeem Camp. Let me know so that I can wait at the gate to collect it. When are you sending it. I waited last week you did not send it…

THE dialogue and the frustration of employing a measure to fit tailor is so real and I am sure we can collect more stories like this one. What is not evident is the working condition of the Tailor or why some Nigerian Tailors are not worthy of trust. It is unfair to present only one side of a story. So we approached the Union of Textile Garment Tailoring Workers for their perspective on a recurring issues.

If stories I have heard and what you our readers have perused is anything to reckon with, the challenges facing the fashion industry go beyond gender, body size or taste. Opara Joachim says the activities of the Union of Textile Garment Tailoring Workers of Nigeria covers “thousands of self-employed tailors and fashion designers. We have a good number of them across the country who are proud and active members of the union.  However, there are still a lot of challenges in fully organising them.”

 He agrees, “there are definitely complaints both on the side of the self-employed tailors/fashion designers and their respective customers.  This is natural and aimed at improving their services.  The real problem however is the heavy burden on these informal economy workers by the local authorities through all forms of taxes and harassment.  There is also infrastructure problem, which you mentioned, in the first part of your excellent write up. COVID-19 has worsen the plight of the workers, even as it also offers great opportunities depending on their creativity.”

The position of the Union is that as you feel the brunt of the torture as clients you should also give a thought to, and be sensitive to the constant harassment by the State. The Tailors are under all sorts of pressure as self-employers’ owners of small-scale businesses.

It may not be totally out of place to argue that in the past “Nigeria, fashion design enterprises form[ed] the bases for many small-scale businesses.” I remember Tyna Onwudiwe’s medium scale fashion business. She appeared to be immune from any sort of state harassment. Her condition of production is that she lived in the flat above but had her working space below her house before she found a business partner who invested in the business and moved it to Adeniran Ogunsanya. Tyna was the designer, the cutter and the clients’ service manager rolled into one. Most of the tailors came from neighboring countries because Nigerian tailors were either incompetent or not worthy of trust.

When I put that preposition to the proprietor of OSC College of Fashion, Ms. Sola Babatunde, that tailors from Francophone countries next to Nigeria are better and more reliable than Nigerian trained Tailors. Her reaction came in a voice note I had to transcribe quickly.  

“I will not use the word better; I know the made to measure cottage industry feels that the Tailors from Benin Republic are better but that is the only thing they are good for. They have sewing skills. Yes, they pay attention to details. They really take their time to sew neatly. However, it is very, very expensive to have them in your employment because at the end of the day, it is a loss. Take me as an example, when I first started, I used to think that way too. They were the only members of my staff but at the end of the month, I realized there was no profit! The reason for this is that it took so long to get one outfit done. It was not long before I discovered that Nigerians just needed training. Therefore, I started to train my staff and right now, my entire workforce of fifty members of staff are all Nigerians.”

As an outsider in this field, I cannot ascertain if Ms. Babatunde is driven more by a patriotic fervour or the realities of the economics of making use of immigrant labour. Her situation is different because she has transitioned from made-to-measure clients like that of the Pastor above but she is now into mass production. She will vouch for Nigerians as the better Tailors because “Nigerians by nature like to be fast, they are always rushing even in their daily lives but on the alternative the Tailors from Francophone countries are calm, laid-back and this gives the impression that they are very good.”

As the quintessential crawler of websites, curiosity (not the sort that killed the cat) took me to search out OSC Company and what did I find? The company has the mission to “provide high quality, precise and timely garment manufacturing service in Africa.” They are driven by a Pan-African vision for excellent service and products across the Garment/Fashion value chain.”

The founder, Mrs. Olusola Babatunde is the principal consultant and creative director of One-Stop Celebration Ltd, a Pan-African, state of art technology driven, mass production garment company. OSC offers contract-manufacturing services with a plan to have a purpose-built factory in Nigeria. Olusola is also the founder of OSCCollege of Fashion, which is focused on training, developing and producing celebrated fashion entrepreneurs that are celebrated in the industry. She is a certified Master Trainer, a train-the-trainer sewing machine operator certified from IL&FS institute of skills in India, a US department of state Alumni and holds an advanced entrepreneurial business certificate from the Andrea’s business school, Barry University, Miami Florida. She is a Goldman Sachs scholar and an Entrepreneurial Development centre of the PAN Atlantic University EDC Alumni, awarded a WED Ambassador for the entrepreneurial development centre, Olusola Babatunde holds a BSc Banking and finance degree from Olabisi Onabanjo University coupled with a Fashion and Marketing certificate from Central Saint Martin’s London. She is a certified computer aided design and manufacturing trainer from Rich peace China.

The story of the founder and the Fashion College speaks to the present position of fashion education in Nigeria. The story will not be complete until Yaba College of Technology’s Department of Fashion can make time out to share the rich history of the School (now Department) of Fashion Design.

MEANWHILE, Dr. Osunanyi Quaicoo Essel takes us on a journey of how Ghana arrived at its present fashion landscape. He says the world must learn about the historical antecedents of Ghana’s fashion education and training as a way of establishing trajectories from “precolonial, colonial to contemporary times with emphasis on 1920 to [the present times].”

It is not surprising that apprenticeship is identified as the indigenous formal educational system in Ghana. What surprised me is the presence of an annual reports of Gold Coast Apprentice System which dates back to 1938, 1939 and 1942. The account by Dr. Osunanyi Essel also included the establishment of Domestic Science school that taught needlework and sewing. As earlier stated in the 2019 paper, “hand sewing or needlework of the time was mainly for women and girls. They sewed animal hides and skins; retted bark of trees; and wove fabrics to cloth themselves and their families”

It was not long before the government of Ghana introduced National Vocational Training Institute. One of the objectives was to empower learners with skills that will make them employable. As with everything on the continent, the intervention of politics changed the structure of the vocational institutions. Legislative instruments elevated the trade schools into public tertiary institutions. For instance, Dr. Essel informs us that Tamale Polytechnic was elevated to the status of a Polytechnic on August 23, 1992 and began the Intermediate Fashion programme 2000 with thirty-six students.”

The history of fashion education in Ghana is rich and diversified. It was not left for the government alone. The enactment of the Education Act 1961 permitted the founding of private schools. Schools like Joyce Ababio College of Creative Design came on board. In addition, Radford College and Bluecrest University College were those that entered the history books at that time.

 The concluding part of this series will take us to South Africa with Dr. Erica de Greef, African Fashion Research Institute; Curator at Large (Fashion) Zeitz MOCAA; Research Collective for Decolonising Fashion