By Yetunde Arebi
Dr. (Mrs) Merit Gordon Obua is not your regular run of the mill fashion personality, nor does she frequently appear on the pages of fashion magazines. A successful and astute business woman, with a Masters Degree in Business Administration, she sits atop Branzuk Gold, the umbrella name for a couple of blue chip companies which includes oil and gas.
However, recognition for her sense of style and love for selfless service through her Branzuk Ikuli Center for Social Rehabilitation (BICSR), an NGO she uses to give back to the society and a platform that earned her an appointment as a Patron on the Board of the World Fashion Organisation.
Her achievement in the spate of one year has earned Nigeria not only the privilege of hosting the African Fashion Reception which comes up in Abuja on3rd to 5th of July,2014 but also the honour of being chosen as the site for the first fashion University on the African continent. She spoke in Abuja on the project and her views on Nigeria’s fashion industry, emphasising that Nigeria must invest in the business aspect of fashion. Excerpts:
From your background as a business woman and consumer of fashion, how would you rate the Nigerian fashion industry?
Nigerian designers are doing perfectly well. They are creative but what is holding us back is that we are not yet introduced into the global market where our designers will be accepted globally. Those in the global market produce with special machines. Their finishing is way better than ours.
Those Nigerian designers that have perfect finishing are usually those who traveled out to study fashion. Though, we have fashion schools, they are not many and lack international standards. Now, for us to be embraced, government has a major role to play. We should start having garment manufacturing industries.
This would make us have accuracy in designs and in perfect finishing. Because these are industries that use 3D machines while we still work on paper. In Nigeria, you will see our designers using biro to sketch while in the advanced countries, you will just design your style and send to the factory.
It is the factory that cuts out the style and pattern, every area of a cloth is being specially done by someone. Here in Nigeria, you see the designer doing the cutting, sewing and ironing. One person produces the cloth. In the advanced countries, top designers don’t operate that way.
They have special people that do every aspect of sewing, such as joining of fabric to even those who specialize in fixing buttons. Somebody that irons is different from the person in charge of packaging. And it is not something an individual designer will do. .
You mentioned government, where does government come in?
Government is supposed to build the garment manufacturing industries that I have spoken about. Those garment manufacturing industries would be where designers would take their fabric to, book for time, insert their designs into the system and send it for production.
When that is done, designers produce more. Right now, we are limited to what we consume. For instance, a designer can only work with limited pieces of designs when working alone and might not be able to give that piece too much attention because he has other pieces to design.
But with the garment manufacturing industry, you can accomplish more because you’ll be producing en-mass for the populace. Nigerian designers do not do mass production. The fashion industry is a money spinning industry that we need to tap into. Indonesia has oil but they do not rely on oil alone.
They have taken fashion as a secondary trade and it is really working well with them. In India, 4% of their GDP comes from fashion. So if Nigeria will embrace it, we’ll do better because we are fashionable and our styles are more elegant. For instance, Gucci is not from China but the fabrics used are produced in China because of their garment manufacturing plant.
They left China and started producing in Indonesia and Thailand because those places have lots of garment manufacturing organizations. Two years ago, Indonesia was like Nigeria. They had oil and their fashion line were just producing for themselves. But then, they went into fashion using a different plan and all the top designers in the world left China and started producing in these places.
Very soon, they will get tired because Africa is virgin land. They want to capture Africa, and they want to use Nigeria as their base. So there is need for Nigerian government to seize this opportunity and I am glad that they have already responded possitively.
So, what does Nigeria stand to gain from the African Fashion Reception?
African Fashion Reception will unveil different aspects of fashion. It will tutor our youths with different aspects of fashion and sensitize us on how to embrace our fabric. After the event, Nigerian fabrics will be officially unveiled into the big market in Paris and Montreal in October. That is why we said three in one event.
Another thing that came up is the training of designers. I have discovered that there is no fashion university all over the world, they only have institutions. Our system cannot absorb those we train because we are not expanding, so, we only train and dump. With the establishment of a fashion university with the help of the World Fashion Organisation, it will serve as a major entrepreneur institution where you don’t produce graduates that will sit down and wait for white collar jobs.
Every graduate of this institution is already a businessman because a package is waiting for you. It is a university that as you are graduating, the big market is already waiting to absorb you. In fact, the plan is that in the final year before graduation, you will be sent outside Nigeria for a one year course where you will be introduced into the big market.
The university would not just be on creative fashion but about fashion as a business. Models will be trained, make-up artistes also and every other aspect of fashion. When you graduate and are being introduced into the big market, you will definitely work with someone.
If you are working alone you will sign contracts and so even lawyers will benefit. It will be a university that has normal curriculum found in other universities with textile and fashion courses. Now, one other thing in fashion is that the fashion market uses one currency. If you are displaying your designs and a buyer comes from outside the country, he will not buy with Naira but in Dollars. This way, our designers have better chances of making more money.
This is a very laudable idea, how did you conceptualize this?
Originally, the World Fashion Organization had the desire to build six universities within the six continents. The one meant for Africa is what is being brought to Nigeria. I have about six African countries dragging this project with me. They were actually on before I joined last year but I got it.
I pray that Nigerian government will support our youths and women because there is no business you do without the government. The program is meant to take women and youths off the street. When someone is busy, he will never be seen in the wrong places because all you’ll be thinking about is how to take care of your family.
But when one is idle, you will think of so many things which is where the devil comes into play. With this university every youth will have something to benefit. This university is expected to be unveiled during the Africa Fashion Receptions and the design is nearing completion soon.
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