worldwidelove:
Popular fashion designer Tayo Oloko is back again. In the early 2000s he was the king of customising. Born with striking good looks, a composure and a sexiness that rivals Adonis the Greek god, he could easily have been a Hollywood actor, he is a blend of Denzel Washington with the swagger of Puff Daddy. Oloko has the physique of a 1990s male model when muscles were a priority in the model world. He is highly articulate and has the brains of a genius; talking to him is an enlightening experience. Oloko speaks with Biodun Abass, Head Entertainment and Style of Vast Magazine about his return to the centre stage of customising in Lagos State and Nigeria and his new music career.


Vast: WHERE HAS OLOKO BEING , ITS LIKE YOU DISAPPEARED OFF THE FASHION SCENE

OLOKO : I Did not disappear at all , I’ve been customising all along and all this while. The only difference is I no longer have the same type of publicity I once had. Pasting of posters was banned in unilag in 2006 and I was apprehended by an overzealous unilag security man for even distributing flyers on campus and was in the security post till a friend of my family saw me and spoke to the security men to let me go. It was an extremely shocking experience. Unilag has changed so much that doing publicity there is too expensive and too restrictive. There’s a law that only residents of a hall can enter a hall, in my unilag days anyone could enter a hall. Male students can no longer enter female hostels. With those types of restrictions it made sense for me to do more off campus business.


Vast : WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO GO INTO FASHION ?

OLOKO : I’ve always been visually creative and I started drawing at age three , I have always being fascinated by fashion and would read fashion magazines of my elder brother. I liked the colours a lot. I started customising two years after I left secondary school as a way to make money and also I saw that it was easier to sell customised designed clothes than sell paintings. I used to draw on paper and canvas and saw how difficult it was to sell them, Nigerians appreciate fashion more so I decided to delve into fashion. When I gained admission into unilag I was extremely fashionable and was the best dressed boy in the entire school. I did not have a car to drive so I compensated with clothes. I spent two hours every day shopping for clothes ; then one day it dawned on me I was a clothes addict . I customised in my university of Lagos days and wore my creations but I also wore ralph Lauren, tommy Hilfiger, Gucci, Armani. I just loved designer clothes then. I only wear oloko designs now. That has been the case for the last 15 years.


Vast : I REMEMBER IN MY UNIVERSITY DAYS WHEN YOUR BRAND WAS EVERY WHERE AND ON EVERYONE IMPORTANT IN UNIVERSITIES BUT THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE, WHAT WENT WRONG ?

OLOKO : Thanks for this question, like I said earlier the Lagos state government banned pasting posters in the state while the university of Lagos state authorities banned posters, banners and hand bills ; that slowed down my business a lot ; advertising played a major role then. Also there are now thousands of people customising clothes. When I reigned there were just 10 people customising in Lagos state so it was easier to have a very large market share. A lot of people still wear my oloko customised clothes. Also I’m working on getting more exposure for my brand. I’ve been doing a lot of late to get me ready for a larger market share. Being the ceo , coo, marketing director, financial director means I have to do it all. The good thing about doing it all is you are more accountable and you know the true status of the company’s health.


Vast : WHATS CUSTOMISING LIKE AS AN INDUSTRY THESE DAYS. YOU WERE A PIONEER OR AS THEY SAY FOUNDING FATHER.

OLOKO : Thank you very much for the compliment and recognition, it was a major sacrifice to start customising , it was a huge risk since I had no entrepreneurial experience, all I had was huge amounts of talent and not wanting to waste my talent and the desire to make a mark. I’m extremely glad customising is now a job and a means of livelihood in Nigeria ; zobo was very popular when I started customising but its two decades later and it’s rare to see zobo. Ovation magazine and the like were extremely popular when I initiated customising but that genre of magazines has disappeared and has been replaced with fashion magazines. I’m very happy a lot of Nigerian youth got into customising, I made so many sacrifices to start customisation and am glad people are carrying the touch and burning bright. The high number of people makes it easier for me to make more money now. A lot of people thought the designs would wash off after the first wash back in the day. Getting people to trust customising was very hard back then.



Vast : WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR FASHION IN 2018 AND BEYOND ?

OLOKO. My plans are very simple to expand my customising label very rapidly and very cheaply. I’ve done a lot of ground work to lay a expansion foundation I’ve been doing underground work now I’m doing the ground work. I’m grateful to God its going very well and better than I planned. That’s the marketing and publicity side I was talking about. I’ve gone into footwear. I make shoes, slippers and shoes. I also make glasses, spectacles, sunshades. I also make wrist watches but in very small quantities. I am self-financed so it all takes time. I’ve also gone into beach wear. But 2018 is for customising of clothes and launching my foot wear line.



Vast : WHY DID YOU GO INTO MUSIC ?

OLOKO : I’ve always had a love for music and have always had a good ear for music. I used to rap a lot around the house and my elder brother called me “ kid mantronics “ I’ve always loved music and could tell which song would be a hit and which song would be a flop. One of the reasons I took up music as a career now is because the standard of music in Nigeria is very low and the acceptance of music is very high. So being a musician in today’s Nigeria is very easy, also I own my own record label and I’m going to sign a lot of youth talent. I am also in talks of signing some old talent, musicians who were huge in the late 90s and early 2000s. I am going to bring back a lot of old forgotten artists to the limelight again.



Vast : THERE WAS ALOT OF CONTROVERSY ABOUT YOUR MUSIC VIDEO OUT OF CONTROL ALOT OF PEOPLE LOVED THE VIDEO AND SOME PEOPLE CALLED FOR ITS BANNING AND ALSO YOUR BANNING.

OLOKO : well I guess it proves the old adage you can’t please everyone still holds. There is a lot of hypocrisy in a lot of people. People watch things for free and complain bitterly. The video was never given to a Nigerian television station to be aired but was placed on the internet where it was watched and viewed, it was placed on sites, the people in the video being fully clothed so anyone who watched the video entered one of the five sites the video is on, so you can see the high level of hypocrisy, anyone who called the video pornography must have. You go into sites to watch a music video of clothed people and then start shouting pornography. The video is highly sensual, sexy and erotic but everyone in the video is fully clothed. People should use the correct terms to define things. You can Google “ Oloko Out of Control “ to view the video yourself.


Vast : HAVE YOU HAD ANY SHOWS YET ?

OLOKO: I have had two performances since I commenced singing ,they were birthday parties, one in Banana Island the other in Lekki. I was invited for a concert in Abuja but I declined the offer. I only stay in Lagos and do not travel out of Lagos. I’m very big on my personal security. I know everywhere in Lagos so I’m secure in Lagos. I’m born and bred in Lagos. To live and die in Lagos, it’s the place to be.



Vast : WE NOTICED YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE LOLOKO OLOKO SAYS YOUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS IS SINGLE.

OLOKO : Yes I’m very much single. Finding a woman is hard. I’ve found out a lot of women are proud and stuck in their ways no matter how much you love them and gently correct them with kindness, gifts and presents they just can’t change. I’ve found out even using the bible to point out how men and women are to relate with each other does not work at all with a lot of women.


Vast : ITS VERY CLEAR THE STANDARD OF CUSTOMISING HAS FALLEN DRASTICALLY FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF OLOKO, LAZE AND HYPNOTISED, WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THIS TO ?

OLOKO : That’s a nice question, it’s always like that during a boom. When laze and I started customising we had to work extremely hard to prove made in Nigeria was as good and even better than imported fashion. In those days we spent a lot of time on each shirt to make them look amazing to make sure students embraced customising. The Nigerian society as a whole has embraced customising so the need to work hard is less. Take Nigerian music for example look at how hard Tuface Idibia worked with his first album, look at Morachis songs. Look at Ginos Farabale , look at how hard Dbanj ,Don Jazzy and Mohits worked. There are musicians like Cartiar and his hit Owo Ati Swagger who changed the game. There’s Elizabeth Zeal Akinlabi whose music is so iconic and she paved the way for a lot of musicians. Ty Bello”s Greenland is such a timeless song. There’s Kush with Make We Live Together. There’s Paul Play. These are the founding fathers of what we have today. Today’s music is an all comers affair so it is with customising. You can even see the same trend in phones. In 2002 nokia , Motorola , Sony , Samsung were the key players ; the standards of phones were very high even made in France Sagem struggled and never gained large acceptance. Tecno is the father of china phones in Nigeria today since they smashed the door down. Now there are scores of china owned phones that have gained ground. Sad to say a few have poor build quality but people love them; I even own a few of the poor build quality ones. So when a boom comes acceptance rises and standards fall.



Vast : THERES A RUMOUR YOU WERE ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH TINUKE ADEROMBI THE HOTTEST WOMAN IN BANANA ISLAND WHOSE STATISTICS ARE 44 26 46 . SHES THE TALK OF THE TABLOIDS WITH SOME ALWAYS PUTTING HER IN THE BIG BREASTS IN NIGERIA , BIG ASS NIGERIAN WOMEN,NIGERIAN WOMEN WITH BIG BREASTS OR SEXY NIGERIAN WOMEN CATEGORY .

OLOKO : Ha ha ! Tinuke and I are just friends, where did you get that from ?! We are just friends. She’s the nicest person on earth extremely nice and humble. Despite all her beauty, physical attributes and family wealth she is so humble and genuinely kind. Whoever she marries would thank God morning noon and night. I’m yet to meet anyone so genuinely nice.


Vast : YOU HAVE BEEN SPOTTED WITH TINUKE AT ALOT OF PLACES IN LAGOS LIKE SHERATON HOTEL, EKO MERIDIEN HOTEL ... A LOT OF PLACES, A LOT OF PEOPLE SPECULATE ITS A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP . YOU ARE A VERY LUCKY MAN.

OLOKO : Na wa ! Lagos is extremely small. Every time I’m out with her it’s like the whole of Lagos stops to look at us or at her. People take her picture all the time. It’s so bad that if we go to the market traders start shouting and taking her pictures. It’s bad that she has an amazing fashion sense so she looks like a video vixen. She had a cameo in my out of control video, She’s the woman in the all-white outfit walking down the road. The Sheraton and meridian sightings of both of us have to do with her visiting her classmates who came visiting Nigeria. Tinuke loves me tagging along with her. She knows I don’t like going anywhere so I guess she thinks ill behave myself. She loves moving to places. I enjoy her company a lot and our conversations are about any and every thing. She’s an extremely intelligent person and she is amazingly humble, she always asks questions, reads her bible and always googles things. Despite being from a wealthy home she has no airs and graces at all. Iv escorted her to some run down houses in surulere where she dyes clothes for her fashion business which she exports and you have kids in just playing pant calling her name and she knows their names, she gives them biscuits and genuinely plays with them. She sees people’s souls. There are times when she refuses to use the family Mercedes e class and goes around by taxi, she wants to go around in buses but is scared of all the attention her body creates. We’ve done bus three times. Her father wants her to use one of his s classes but she refuses saying she does not want much attention on her.


Vast : WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS IN FASHION MUSIC AND RELATIONSHIPS ?


OLOKO : Fashion wise I’m doing great and it’s going to get better . A major challenge is our work ethic is poor and my staff love travelling home for holidays. It’s cultural and mental so there’s little I can do. I’m doing great things in 2018. I’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point. Musically it’s just the beginning. Relationship wise only God can tell.


Vast: THANK YOU FOR GRANTING THIS INTERVIEW.

OLOKO : The pleasure is all mine. Thanks

damiloladuke:

Shortly after winning the Best Model Nigeria 2016 modeling contest, Modelslink organizers of the Best Model Nigeria contest sent the winner and the first runner up Ejiro Joy Akpokiniovo and Pamela Orizu to the Best Model of The World contest to represent Nigeria as their prize.


Best Model of The World grand finals held on the 3rd of December in Istanbul Turkey with models from over 40 countries participating. Best Model of the World is one of the world biggest modeling contest for male and female from all over the world. In its last 29 year, it has produced many international models one of whom is Naomi Campbell. The competition which showcase the models in their casuals, Traditional or National costumes, swimwear and dinner appearance.

Ejiro Joy Akpokiniovo the Nigeria representative came top in the female category of the contest beating other contestants from Europe, America, Asia and other African countries represented while Pamela Orizu was the Best Catwalk Model of The World.

Modelslink owners of the Best Model of The World franchise in Nigeria has used this platform to empower many Nigeria youths in the Modeling / Fashion industry in Nigeria and it has also being a very good medium of promoting Nigeria rich culture and tourism potentials to the outside world. Modelslink in the last six years has used the platform to send Nigerian models to countries like Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, USA, Egypt, Dubai (UAE) and United Kingdom.

Through these achievements, Nigeria currently has been given the right to host the world in 2017. We are therefore using this medium to call on the government, cooperate and well meaning Nigerians to support this great event because it has the potentials of that will help change the perception of Nigeria image and promote our rich cultural heritage.


More photos below...

[img]https://4.bp..com/-XgmdPUmDz6g/WGt5KPt5bEI/AAAAAAALTk4/eslXvrR7ZGQctcsgrrgWg5gVFutOWj13QCLcB/s400/1.jpg[/img]

[img]https://4.bp..com/-Z_rK2UpCTu0/WGt5Jfd8AkI/AAAAAAALTkw/B0Gazn0fyYAr9kY1W1bIMvW8Gz6Ge_acgCLcB/s400/2.jpg[/img]

[img]https://3.bp..com/-AOJwdsJRvjg/WGt5IXjFiDI/AAAAAAALTks/vfrP2EXWnBUT0_OX2j5SiFlaRdRRHKKQACLcB/s400/3.jpg[/img]

[img]https://4.bp..com/-xHumZhAIMZY/WGt5J71pV_I/AAAAAAALTk0/c6BWRUom8IsB7WboO2shwHpTgyo1mkvzACLcB/s400/4.jpg[/img]

http://www.blackberrybabes.com/2017/01/best-model-nigeria-winner-ejiro-joy.html

techgeniusworld:
was watching a youtube video on customised tee shirt fashion in nigeria. Its amazing OLOKO the founding father of nigerian custonised fashion is still in the business after a remarkable 20 something years, the guy is clearly a genius, i enjoyed the video totally . What i liked most was he has created a totally new style for himself. In an industry where everybody is still stuck with names and numbers he hes shifted gear to printing, drawing and inscribing faces on shirts. His shirts from the video i saw were totally awesome. Real crisp and sharp images on real high quality shirts. There was alot of afrocentric designs in the video. I remember when i was in the university of lagos ,unilag and oloko used to make shirts for club boys like rho,inexcess, foads,on and grind. It brought back so many memories. I remember those days when we went to moremi hall and youd see club boys in thier bmws and benzes rocking oloko customised wear.

techgeniusworld:
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. i hope you enjoyed this.

techgeniusworld:
Nice pix

techgeniusworld:
MAI ATAFO HAS BEEN VOTED THE BEST NIGERIAN FASHION DESIGNER AGAIN . CONGRATS TO A VERY CREATIVE DESIGNER. Who is your best nigerian fashion designer ? Deola Sagoe, Mai Atafo or Tiffany Amber

techgeniusworld:
its so important to be romantic. True love is hard to die and it always endures. Men should love woman, be gentle and kind towards them, in return women should be respectful, humble and appreciative to men that love them. This is the only way that works