By Christy Anyanwu
Seye Kolawole is an entrepreneur with a background in chemical engineering from the University of Lagos. He has worked across a number of industries, ranging from banking to oil and gas, and now, fashion. He runs a number of businesses, including training and consulting.
Recently, he took the bull by the horns to launch a flagship fashion store in Lekki, Lagos. He spoke with Saturday Sun about his journey into fashion.
Coming from an engineering background, why did you go into fashion?
Personally, from my kindergarten days, I have always loved looking good. In my primary school days, there were scenarios where my mum would say I should wear a certain outfit and I would argue that it was not what I wanted. There was a time when my mum forced me to wear a particular dress for Christmas, and they were going to take a picture. I was visibly angry that it was not the latest trend. So, I think I have always had a thing for clothing and fashion. In my secondary school days, I made some tie and dye materials and sewed.
But I think this particular journey started during my service year. I served in Owerri, and I heard in Aba, just one hour's journey from Owerri, I could get people to sew shirts and also make shoes. So I started making shirts and shoes to sell to my colleagues and fellow corps members in Owerri, as well as sending some to my sister in Ibadan. That was over two decades ago; I have been making clothes from Aba and recently from other parts of the world to reach the demands of my clients all over the world.
Away from service year, when did you have your major break as a fashion entrepreneur?
After my service year, I got a job with a bank but while I was working in the bank, I was in Akure then, I was actually still buying clothes from Aba and selling them to my clients. It is a passion. It is something I like. I like seeing people look good, and I have an eye for fashionable appearances. Even when I went into the oil and gas sector, I still continued doing this.
But in 2005, I started doing it full-time. At that time, I was making shirts and I was selling them out of my car boot. That was before social media and online marketing became popular.
What I did was that I would take pictures of the shirts, put them in the body of an email, and I would circulate the email. People were sharing the emails across various platforms in banking, oil and gas, construction companies and all that. So what I did was, in the morning, I would send the email and then during the day I must have received emails on orders and I would start doing deliveries.
Along the line, I stopped and went into business consultancy and training, which I did for a greater part of the last decade. But some of my clients from way back were just asking, when is ‘Made for Man’ coming back? That was why I decided to give it the attention it deserved. And that is why we are launching this store in Lekki now. Our intention is to grow this business and grow our outlets across Nigeria and the world.
Your brand is mostly for men. Why?
Yes. That was where we had the name, ‘Made for Man’, but interestingly, at that time that I was doing full time, we had so many demand for female wears, so we started doing female shirts and we ended up having female customers even more than the male. So when they asked us Made for Man, why man? We say it is mankind. And so we are catering for men and women and it is still the intention. ‘Made for Man’ is the global brand, but then we would continue to bring in our female label and Children label under the Made for Man brand.
What inspires your designs?
I like to see people look good, and we have a team that also has what they look out for. We look at current designs and trends. In fact our intention is that for some of our products like our shoes, we intend to have people give us the kind of designs they want and then we make those shoes for them because we manufacture them ourselves.
What is your definition of style?
Style for us is not pretentious. For us, we are not about what is expensive, we are about what feels good, what looks good on you and what is appealing. We are also about simplicity and what is going to go beyond the current fad. The common experience of our customers is the quality and timelessness of our products.
Have we really explored the fashion industry in Aba, and in other parts of the country?
Yes in a way, but then we have not explored the fashion industry in Aba as much as we should. Way back, our people had this sense that if it was made in Nigeria, then it was not good. There is still a lot that we can do, although it is much better now, there is always a need for improvement.
As a fashion entrepreneur, can you share with us five fashion nuggets men should look out for?
First, wear what fits you. Whatever you choose to rock for the day as a man should not be too tight. People may have preferences with tight clothes, but wear what fits you. Wear what you are comfortable with. If you wear what you are not comfortable with, it will show in your carriage.
Again your accessories should be good quality and they should match what you are wearing.
These accessories include your belt, watches, etc. Again, wear colours that match, wear colours that do justice to your complexion, colours that complement each other. Of course, these days people are becoming bolder as men, so maybe before now men would not wear pink or yellow, but there are ways that you can combine those colours and they would really look good on you.
How can we develop the fashion industry beyond just making clothes?
There is a lot happening in the fashion industry, and there is a lot of demand for Africa, especially with the ever-growing Diaspora population, and then by foreigners who see what the African culture is all about, probably because of our movies and music that are making waves round the world. The fashion industry in Nigeria, especially that which comes with that local flavour, is really growing, and we should place more emphasis on what is ours, improve the quality of what we produce and focus on our own local content. And that is why you have Made for Men. We are not just doing English wears, but we are very big on traditional. We are also unique for the sales of our Ankara-themed shirts.
What are the five mistakes men make in suit or in Ankara?
Typically, again, because you know that suits are not local to us, you probably want to follow what the owners of suits have said. While we may be looking at mistakes, the reality is that fashion keeps evolving, so what somebody might consider as a mistake, to another person is the trendy fashion.
Ordinarily, someone would say when you are wearing a suit, you should wear it with lace-up shoes, but you see that now people wear it with sneakers, people wear it with canvas and all sorts.
Again, in the current scenario of fashion, with exception of the English aristocrat, there are really no rules to wearing suits. You might think you are making a mistake and then tomorrow you find out that everybody is copying you. And it becomes what is trendy.