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• We’re taking Aba to the world fashion-wise
A fashion entrepreneur, Uzorma Johnson, has exonerated designers from blame over the near-nude dressing being showcased by many women nowadays. She insisted that young adult women who expose their sensitive body parts at public gatherings lack home upbringing. The Biochemistry graduate of UNIPORT-turned fashion designer said her brand was out to take Nigeria’s South-East region to international fashion limelight.
As a graduate of Biochemistry, why the passion for fashion designing?
I have had a passion for sketching, designing fashion wears, since I was a young girl. I began dreaming of how certain cloth designs should be made in my dreams, and even saw them on gazing on plain walls in my memory whenever I remained calm for a while as a child. During my school days, especially while in the University of Port Harcourt, I got much involved in social activities and was always asked to organise outfits for outing occasions. I also began sketching designs for certain categories of fashion houses in town. So, it has been my passion all along.
So what actually lured you into it full blast? Or is it in your family?
I won’t say it is in my family. Rather the encouragement came actually from my late grandmother, who though advanced in age in her nineties, still monitored how I dressed whenever I was home from school. She would caution me if I wore the wrong attire and even recommend befitting styles and colours to wear to occasions, be it marriage ceremonies, church events, society gatherings, etc. She would say ‘Nwakaego,’ – that’s the native name she gave me – “come here, why are you putting on this kind of dressing? Go and remove it, please. Don’t you look at your skin colour and know that the yellow one will be better for your outing now?” She inspired and urged me on to always dress decently as a woman and be mindful on how I comport myself publicly. I think I got the fashion consciousness from her. However, my direct parents were flatly against my going into fashion designing. My father, being a mission-trained educationist and no-nonsense disciplinarian, never gave in to any of his relations or children to leave questionable lives. In fact, one of my uncles recommended that I study nursing and go abroad to the United States, Europe or Middle East, where medical professionals earned so much money. Having the passion and the creative ingenuity, I began sketching those designs shown me in dreams and on plain house walls when I concentrate and handing them over to owners of fashion houses for free. On some occasions, I began seeing my sketches brought alive in sewn clothing/apparels worn by female celebrities in big society outings like traditional marriages, top public functions, and cultural engagements. I began to doubt where such designs were coming from, since I couldn’t lay claim to being the one that designed and sold them to their final producers. This, I will say, lured me to start thinking of coming into the business fully and taking our locality to the national and global stage.
After my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme in 2012/13, I began a career as a teacher in a private school but later joined the public school system. For about five to six years, I began getting restless, uneasy that I was not getting it right with my life and while teaching, ideas on what to design were flooding my memory instead of the things to teach the school children, so I had to leave to follow my creative passion. I tried so hard to let go to deviate my attention from it but didn’t succeed. So, I chose to follow my mind.
As a married woman, did your husband in anyway oppose your leaving the teaching job and going into fashion designing?
No. My husband had always believed and trusted me when it comes to behavioural attitudes. Like I said earlier, my father was a strict disciplinarian and had inculcated that in us, his children. On his part, I knew my husband when we were together in the secondary school, Community High School, Isieke Ibeku, Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State. We attended the school together and know each other. So, he knows my passion and has encouraged me in pursuing it. He knows that I will not derail from the person he met and married, which is actually the fear of most men while refusing to allow their wives go into certain areas of public life. I am focused on how to elevate our brand to attract local and international attention.
You said you’re an Aba brand – a South-East Nigerian brand and sending it to the world. But Aba already has a brand in the international textile market. So what are you bringing differently to the table?
Like I had said earlier, I was seeing wears depicting my earlier sketches and designs being worn by celebrities in big cities during exclusive society outings and large gatherings, though I wouldn’t claim they originated from me, in view of the fact that I never patented or sold any of them to producers. This gave me the courage to think and believe that if I come out properly, my work can favourably compete with those in other climes outside our zone. Aba and in fact, the entire South-East of Nigeria is talented with creative talents, be it in tailoring, carpentry, iron work, masonry, fabrication and other crafts. It is this ingenuity of our people that I want to join, extend further to other parts of Nigeria, Africa, America, Europe and Asia. From our home base in Aba, we want to move into the world with our Igbo indigenous cultural dressing, our own native brands, designed and made to suit every clime, with passion and its original identity. This is my mission and I believe I’ll succeed. We have a brand name and every of our collection will bear the tag: KOKAMZ Collection. We are beginning with children’s wears, then on to full motherhood, women’s attire. The public space is there. The society is always ready to receive another and other creative presentations, even from generations yet to come and we are ready to explore and exploit the options and opportunities that are available in the sector.
It has often been said that fashion designers were responsible for the wayward dressing by women, especially young girls in the society. How true is this?
Yes, the issues about fashion and wearing clothes are sometimes being called to question due to the wrong perception of those involved and their attitudes. Fashion is divided into segments and there are wears for specific occasions in life, though some have decided not to follow the ethics or go straight on to abuse and negate the system. One cannot claim to be grown up and use it as an avenue to become unadvisable. People are daily being nurtured on leading decent lives at home and in the outward society.
There are fashion wears for going to parties. You can’t wear such dresses to church services. It is abnormal and unacceptable. Also, there’s fashion for traditional outings, marriages, weddings, public/society gatherings, among others. It is heartbreaking seeing our women, including those in middle and older ages, wearing just anything including those made for sleeping at night, to societal outings, to religious events, just to show they have arrived. This is unacceptable, I repeat and an abomination before God. Such people, do not know that while dressing so, are actually exposing their bodies and themselves to critical public appraisal and scrutiny. I’ll say here that fashion designers are not to blame for this wayward kind of living. We cannot even put the blame on parents. No! Those indulging in it should take the blame because many of them believe that having arrived as adults, they’ve outgrown sound advice on how to live diligently. The way a woman comports herself in public, including her dressings at occasions, makes way for who she becomes in future. In our communities, in Africa, people grade women by their outlook, speeches and carriage.
Fashion is designed for particular occasions but some individuals choose to wear what will attract public attention to them without minding the negative consequences. This is a societal ill that must be curbed. People think that wearing certain attire as seen in other developed lands like America and Europe will show them as having arrived. They claim that as adults, they ought to be allowed to decide their lifestyle, including attire to don at any given time. It is not true.
What’s your word to young people out there with God-given talents who haven’t got jobs after school?
Creative talent development has now become the focus for youth employment in the world. People now use the knowledge they acquire from vocations and learning they get from forebears at home and talents from birth to set up business and from there begin earning money to cater for themselves and their immediate families. Like I said, I did not train as a fashion designer but the knowledge I am getting from God is leading me into what I want to do. I know it is risky and requires a very serious mindset. However, my desire and will is to weather the storm to success, showcasing Aba, Igbo nation’s culture to the world. I want our young men and women to take up the challenge. They should stop wasting time waiting for white collar jobs, which are no more. On its part, government should create a conducive environment for school leavers in entrepreneurial engagements to have access to assistance to succeed
