THE HISTORY OF CUSTOMISED FASHION IN NIGERIA

Customised fashion among the teeming youth in Nigeria is not a trend but a life style. Customisation of fashion items predominantly shirts is all pervasive with Nigerians of all ages and cultures embracing the life style.

The youth in particular tend to be this type of fashions " fashion victim
". University students who tend to be the most fashion conscious group
of individuals globally have embraced Customisation with an open heart
and with little to no reserve. If one is fortunate to ever pay a visit to a Nigerian university campus this fashion culture is very visible on students as they mill around the campus in their attractive, bright and sometimes very outlandish customised clothes which tend to be predominantly tee-shirts.

The Customised culture is unisex with female students using it as a tool to accentuate their sexiness. Words like " SEXY GIRL ", " BIG IN FRONT", " BUSTY ", " ENDOWED " ,” BIG IN FRONT, MASSIVE AT THE BACK " and having customized words placed at the back of mini skirts words like " BAKASSI", " BOOTILICIOUS" are the words that are most common. Male students appear to stick to the time tested and trusted Customising Names and numbers on shirts ; female students also take part in the perpetual craze to have their names and a number inscribed on a shirt. Outside the campus scene the level of customizing is much lower and
among different demographics.

The young and young at heart still hold sway. There is a niche which is filled by the Victoria Island, Lekki populace. This niche market wears customised shirts with drawings and words of Lagos life and culture. A very popular theme is the graphic representation of yellow molues, yellow " kombi " buses and the like. A lot of mainland patrons of customized wear simply wear jerseys with their names and numbers of their choice.









WHERE DID IT ALL START FROM?

THE ORIGINS OF CUSTOMISING .

Customising in Nigeria started in 1994. It is believed to have been started by someone called Olutayo Olugbenga Oloko an 18 year old residing inside the University of Lagos Akoka ,Yaba. Two years after leaving secondary school and after 2 failed attempts to pass the dreaded JAMB exam he decided to go into business.

Tayo Oloko who was always artistic, graphic and creative decided to start writing words and putting drawings on tee-shirts. It was a highly
novel idea in 1994 since most of the shirts worn in Nigeria at the
time were either imported with mass produced designs, plain
tee-shirts, or screen printed by road side printers and screen
printers. Tayo Oloko had no knowledge of fabric paints so used what he
knew from his experience with painting. He was a frequent shopper at
Art World Artists shop in Ojuelegba so went he there to buy paint.
Oloko used oil paint for canvas which he soon found out cracked dry on tee- shirts. Not one for giving up Tayo Oloko decided it was best to
ask for advice; he started by increasing the number of art shops he
visited in order to get a larger pool of art materials to buy from.
Looking closely at paint bottles Oloko saw that Acrylic paint could be
used on fabric, so he bought acrylic paint from Art world Ojuelegba.
Feeling happy, excited and elated he bought two dozen white
tee-shirts and that was the beginning of OLOKO DESIGNS.

Oloko's first customer was a fashion retailer Mr. Sola Bolarinwa of Basics for Men . Mr. Bolarinwa saw the business opportunity and bought a dozen shirts . The high price of imported acrylic made oloko begin to source for quality made in Nigeria fashion printing inks. Amazingly he found what he was looking for on a street behind Ojuelegba road, it was there he found made in Nigeria textfast ink. Oloko then bought a small container of the 5 primary colours being White, Yellow, Red, Blue and Black. By patronising made in Nigeria printing inks it was then easy to reduce the cost of customising to the delight of his growing clientele.


Business was growing rapidly as family members had started patronising him. Oloko's mother and fashion conscious sisters and childhood friends were the bulk of his customers in 1994. As time went on business spread by word of mouth and people had started coming regularly to his house located at Block 4 Flat 5 Ozolua Road in the University of Lagos. In a bid to meet the rising demand Oloko made a bulk purchase of 10 dozens of tee-shirts (120 shirts). He had gone to the same place he always bought his shirts in Yaba Market to buy but was informed his retailer had travelled home to the East, due to wanting to buy in bulk to reduce prices he decided to buy from another tee-shirt retailer. It turned out to by a business setback since half of the shirts had holes in them. Oloko was dismayed and perplexed and wanted to give up, this was his first business set back. He solved the problem by wearing some of the shirts and offered huge discounts if clients wanted to use shirts with holes and offered to cover them up with paint. In hindsight he could have just patched the shirts and made it to look like fashion ; the problem was Oloko was in his first six months in business and had zero knowledge of tailoring or
wear to buy fabric.

As all businesses go the early boom turned into a bust after a year as sales dropped. Tayo Oloko then decided the best way out was to
improve the quality of his drawing on the shirts by spending more time
on a shirt. He started drawing horses and men on horses to get a
larger share of the market since that was the vogue at the
time with the youth. It was a business decision that paid off greatly .
Emmanuel Agbenohevi and Ifa Lobo were the first people to buy shirts with a hand drawn horse and they brought a whole new customer base of fashion enthusiats who were big spenders. Another source of expansion was through Mr. Sola Bolarinwa who sold clothes to high net worth
individuals. Mr Bolarinwa wore Oloko shirts and expanded Oloko design.
On one occasion the highly influential Adeniji brothers comprising
of Kunle Adeniji and his younger brother Femi Adeniji saw Sola
Bolarinwa wearing an Oloko shirt. The Adenijis lived a block away from
Oloko on ozolua road. They were members of the most known, powerful and influential students CLUB in the University of Lagos ; RHO CLUB. The
Adenijis got all members of Rho Club to wear Oloko designed shirts
with " RHO " inscribed on them.




What made the Rho shirts the talk of the campus was the use of GLOW IN THE DARK PAINT by Oloko , it was the first time Glow paint had ever being used by a printer or customiser. Doing shirts for Rho club opened the entire university to Oloko.

Inspite of his commercial success Oloko still made highly african designs on shirts and he wore them to his university classes: this was noticed by Ms. Kemi Awoyinka a dynamic curator, retailer of Nigerian art works. Kemi Awoyinka was the founder of REMAS. Oloko joined Remas and was a very active member.

Remas staged art shows in the French Cultural centre in Ikoyi on three
occasions and one show in Beachland Estate. Tayo Oloko always had the
highest sales since he sold African tee-shirts as against the other
members who sold paintings and artworks. Remas would come to an end in 1999 due to Kemi Awoyinka graduating from the University of Lagos,
Unilag and relocating to the United Kingdom to further her education. Oloko then concentrated fully on the University of Lagos market which had 35,000 students at that point in time. A large portion of oloko design financial revenue came from student clubs both in the University of Lagos and other universities. Students travelled from as far as Abuja, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ife and out of Lagos state just to customise. Nigerian Customisation was still in its infancy in 1999.

While Oloko is the fashion King in Unilag , Bayo LAZE is the King in
Yaba Tech. Laze started customising in 1995 , he and Oloko become
friends in 1999. Olokos major selling point is his designs are extremely permanent and he gives them a 10 year guarantee. The year 2000 is when Akpo Orukomayo owner and founder of HYPNOTISED gets involved in Customised fashion. In 2000 Hypnotised is a party and events organising company. Akpo Orukomayo and Tayo Oloko form a business alliance which benefits both parties tremendously. Hypnotised is given the role of marketer and sales person of Oloko designs customising while Oloko designs is giving the role of Publicist and Advertiser of Hypnotised. Thanks to Akpo Orukomayo ,Oloko designs is finally introduced to the average student. Hypnotise also gains massive publicity in the university of Lagos and its environs. It is a business partnership made in " heaven ". In 2001
Hypnotised becomes a clothing company , this leads to the dissolution
of the Oloko Hypnotised agreement. By 2002 Hypnotised is a popular
fashion brand among the youth of Nigerian universities and is gaining
market share in the university of Lagos. In 2003 Oloko staged an art
exhibition at the highly prestigious DIDI MUSEUM. In 2004 there are
many students embracing customising both in the university of lagos
and other the universities. 2004 is the year of the explosion of
customising in Nigeria. Customising is now a culture in Nigerian
society and has given thousands of young Nigerians a career path and a
means of employment.