Fashion means different things to different people. When it comes to dissecting the key essentials of it, it becomes complicated. Oftentimes, it is impossible to have an empirical definition of it without getting entangled with some essentials of it which include beauty, style and trend.
In an interview with Tribune Online, Onyeuka Sophia Anwuli, the Chief Executive Officer of Sophie Couture, a leading brand in fashion and boutique business in Nigeria gives her own understanding of fashion and all it entails. For someone who has held sway in the business for twelve years, she certainly knows her onions when it comes to fashion.
“Fashion, beauty and style all work hand in hand. Fashion, beauty, and style are three best friends,” she says.
“They can stand on their own but they are better together because they complement one another. Fashion is not completely meaningful without beauty and style. Beauty enhances fashion and style,” she adds.
As for trends, the boss lady at Sophie Couture, situated in the highbrow Lekki on the Island of Lagos, Nigeria explains as thus: “Being creative dictates trends in fashion. Yes, this has helped with the growth of my brand. For example, we happen to have customers who also reside abroad who shop from us here in Nigeria and we get to ship their items to them abroad. An average person who lives in the USA who shops with us during the winter period will not shop for clothing from us for summer. Now, with this, we consider our customers abroad by stocking up things like tracksuits, winter jackets, etc regardless of the fact that they cannot be sold here in Nigeria due to our hot weather. So, for fashion, we go by the trend because that’s the only way to keep being in business.”
After graduating from Imo State University with a Bachelor’s degree in banking and finance Onyeuka Sophia Anwuli picked up an 8-5 pm job with a shipping company while running her boutique and fashion business as a side hustle.
She floated the Sophie Couture brand in 2007 and has since taken the brand to the apex of the ladder in fashion and boutique business by deploying technology-driven marketing skills and also by selling luxury items at affordable prices.
“To be fashionable is an ability to take the trend of fashion and add some twist into it that makes you fashionable. You can spot a fashionable person by the way he or she adds up his or her dressing together to make it look appealing to the eyes. Adding up colours, knowing the right colour of shoe and bag to match with your clothes is what defines your sense of fashion,” she says.
According to her, the seed of her passion for fashion began to germinate from the age of 5 until she took it up seriously after graduation from Imo State University.
“I so much loved clothes to the extent that I always spent all my salary on fashion because then my dad was always giving me a monthly work salary as supper upkeep so I didn’t have any course to worry. I love to look good and dress fashionably. This passion became clearer whenever I dress up people admire and always like to know where I got the dress I was wearing from. It was then I began to think out of the box to say if I put in efforts I could make a good living out of selling clothes. This was how it all began for me,” she reminisces.
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