Adie Vanessa Offaiong
10 January 2009
interview
Eunice Oghina Dawodu is founder of Ginani, a Lagos-based fashion designing and training outfit. The University of Benin History graduate spoke to Weekend Magazine on her career as a fashion designer and designing in Nigeria. Excerpts:
Please tell us a bit of yourself and back ground...
I am a fashion designer and consultant. Although I started training since 2001, the focus of my business in the past three years has been training designers and tailors and other people in the fashion industry in garment production and design. I train them in basic skills comprising cutting, sewing and pattern making. So a lot of what I do is training. I also have a garment line under the Ginani Label that I started in August, 2008.
What kind of clothing do you have under the Ginani label?
I do a variety of them, ranging from shirts, dresses, skirts and a lot of others. I use different fabrics like Ankara, linen and a combination of some others.
Did you train to be a fashion designer or this started as a hobby?
(Laughing) I studied history at the University of Benin to satisfy my parents. But deep down I always wanted to be a fashion designer. It was not the in thing then and no parent wanted their child to become a tailor. No matter how good or qualified a person was in that time the general representation for any cloths maker was 'tailor' and as a derogatory term mostly. After graduation I went to England just to while away sometime and I found myself in the fashion industry. It wasn't deliberate; I saw an opportunity and started working with some designers there. I got most of my training on the job. The best training I think I got was after then because the U.K. industry does not prepare you for what the Nigerian industry has to offer. I thought I was really good when I came back, (Laughing) and wanted to start a business. I found out that for about a year my business was grounded. I had invested so much, money and otherwise but I was working with people who were not skilled. So it didn't matter how good I was. I had to go back to my books, go through my systems to find a simplified way of training people. Because I needed to work with skilled people the mantle fell on me to train them. So I started all over. This time I developed a system to train my staff. But as I was training them, they were leaving as fast as I could train them. So I said to myself, "Hang on, if I am training these people for free and they are leaving, I might as well train them for a fee." So I started a training program and got people to pay me for training them. That's how the training part of me started.
What kind of people do you train?
Outside people who are already in the fashion industry we train young school leavers who want to get a hang of what fashion designing is about and start off a business. Our training is really in-depth so that most of our trainees become entrepreneurs. They acquire skills that make them all rounder. They can actually produce cloths, employ tailors, supervise and work closely with them. So that when they start their business they are not totally dependent on tailors and can head their own production team.
A lot of tailors do not have proper tailoring ethics. What can you say about that?
I call my training program professional garment production and design. People do not understand really that they are in a profession. When you say professional it means that the practitioner knows the theory behind the skill they are applying. People come in for practical training, they want to do artisan training. If I get you into my business and I say to you, "watch me; watch how I cut and how I sew." I am training an artisan not a professional.
How do you guide or teach the trainees?
I have written seven books on production and design. The first thing I do is get them to read even after training sessions with them I encourage them to go back to their manuals and get the know-how into their heads so that in the workshop when I talk they have a perfect understanding of what we are saying, so it is not guess work anymore or what I said. It is what I said and what the book says. You build a format which you could use in future as a referral and teach others. Skill is in the application of knowledge. People have to get the knowledge of what they are doing and apply it in whatever you are doing in such a way that you are efficient. This is the way I like to train.
For instance fabrics like Vlisco Hollandais and Super Wax are really expensive. People do not want to buy them and give to just anybody that will make rubbish out of them. But with training programs, people will feel more confident to give their fabrics no matter how expensive to Nigerian tailors. The tailors will not just charge more but will deserve what they charge. That way they can get the respect of their customers.
On a general note, what challenges do you face in the business?
Electricity is a major one. My initial challenge was losing my tailors after working so hard to train them. But I think. This is gradually being taken care of now; I really do not consider it a challenge anymore.
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