Meet the Nigerian fashion designer building Africa's Hermès

By Mfonobong Nsehe

From Goldman Sachs to launching her own fast-growing high-end fashion start-up, Nigerian entrepreneur is looking to tap into Africa's growing luxury goods market.

Kunmi Otitoju, a 30-year-old Nigerian fashion designer and entrepreneur, holds two Computer Science degrees – a Bachelor of Science degree with first-class honors from Howard University and a Master of Science degree from Virginia Tech.

But her first love was Fine Art. As a high school student in Lagos, she won the Fine Arts prize at school every year for 3 years. Having moved to the U.S. when she was 17, and then to Europe at the age of 25, Otitoju found herself deeply enmeshed in western culture. Keen on preserving her Nigerian identity and eager to propagate facets of Nigerian culture, she conceived the idea of lining high-quality leather bags with Aso-oke fabric, a hand-loomed cloth woven by Nigeria’s Yoruba people.

In 2011, after stints at Goldman Sachs and a few other international corporations, Otitoju established Minku, a fast-growing high-end Afro-centric brand that produces luxury bags, wallets and other fashion accessories for men and women by subtly blending Aso-oke into contemporary Spanish leathers to present a transcontinental finish.

All Minku’s products are hand-made at a workshop in Barcelona, Spain, but they are sold at high-end stores in Nigeria and on the company’s website.

Otitoju recently spoke to me about her journey, her future plans, and the state of luxury goods in Africa.

Why Aso-Oke?

For me, Aso-Oke is luxury. It is hand-woven, the weaving is dense, in the imperfection of the weaving lies evidence of the human touch, and it comes in sophisticated colours and patterns. What is luxury afterall? For me, it is the finest aspects of one’s culture, distilled, packaged, presented to, and accepted by the rest of the world. For example, Italy has leather and coffee as some of the finest aspects of its culture, and that is evident with the luxury companies out of Italy. Same with Switzerland and watches. Africa was a bit late to the branded luxury game, but we are catching up. Aso-oke lets me contribute to this in a small way.

Are you expanding into other goods and services?

Yes. We now offer a personalization service that lets our clients customize a purchase with their name/initials/message embossed onto the leather. It is a nice way to personalize one’s Minku bag, or just to include a message that is a reminder of love or a feeder of good vibes.

In our latest collection, I introduce bracelets for men. Men’s bracelets have gained wide acceptance among males, from surfers in Cape Town to investment bankers in New Jersey. I personally buy into the idea of a man wearing a beaded bracelet — it tells a story of travel and daring, and it alludes to an open mind. So combining precious metals — 18kt gold, sterling silver — with powder glass beads hand-made by the Nupe people of Nigeria, I created a collection of men’s bracelets. Each bracelet comes in an Aso-Oke lined watersnake leather drawstring pouch of varying designs. The pouches double as key-chains.

You have been running Minku for three years now. How is it received?

Minku has been well received. Like any other entrepreneur, I have had some discouraging moments. But many good opportunities have also arisen, sometimes unexpectedly, and it is those that have helped Minku to grow. So I work hard on product and marketing, but I have also learned that serendipity is part of entrepreneurship.

Are there any specific experiences that shaped your resolve to be an entrepreneur?

My parents have been entrepreneurs for most of my life, so I had exposure to the idea of becoming one, quite early on. In 2010, I was accepted to Stanford University to study product design under the Stanford Mechanical Engineering Masters program. This was a dream come true for me because I love Formula 1 and I wanted to study how to design faster cars (I still do; I love working with constraints, and Formula 1 car design provides constraint sets that fascinate me). However, I had just moved to Barcelona less than a year earlier, and did not yet want to leave.

So, I had a hard question to answer: if I didn’t go to Stanford, could I still do good design, at a level similar to if I was a Stanford Product Design grad? I was not sure, but I decided to try. I think a lot of the courage to set out and start Minku came from desperately wanting the answer to that question to be a ‘yes’.

What do you think about the luxury market in Africa?

I think there is a fast-growing market for African-made luxury goods in Africa. Building this market to last will take a paradigm shift as to why it’s as cool to own a leather bag designed by a Nigerian or Kenyan luxury house as it is to own one from an Italian powerhouse. But it also takes much product/service refinement on the part of African designers and manufacturers. Recently, African designers have been hitting the mark on product refinement, even with local production. This has been producing results, and needs to continue. International gatherings like the 2012 IHT Luxury Conference also help to focus on Africa’s capacity for luxury creation and consumption. I like the idea of Africa as a destination for handmade luxury.

As a person running a business, what are some skills or attributes that you have found to be indispensable?

As a person running a business, I have found that optimism has helped me get far. If you combine an optimistic disposition with research and hard work, you can do great things.

As a creator of quality leather goods, what are some skills or attributes that you have found to be indispensable?

The main skill for me is creativity. I will go meta and say that an indispensable skill has been knowing how to get myself into my best creative mode.

Where do you see Minku in 5 years?

I try not to plan ahead much, because there are too many factors beyond my control. At the moment, growth for Minku is centered on making the most desirable products I can conceive. I am working with unusual materials: Aso-oke from Nigeria, and leather. So there is already some novelty there, but I am interested in seeing just how much excitement I can wring out of people, both men and women, on the mundane topic of bags. So much of my current focus is on that.

I belong to the generation where the most successful social network was started out of a dorm room, so for me, having a small atelier for working and an online storefront has not been unusual, and I am lucky that this model has been well-received. In five years, I would love to have a flagship store for Minku, perhaps in Lagos or New York City.

This article was first published by Forbes here

Mfonobong Nsehe travels across Africa, helping Forbes to chronicle the stories of successful African enterprises and entrepreneurs.

Growing a footwear brand in Africa

Nigerian footwear company, Maducho Luchi, saw a lucrative opportunity to supply luxury fashion products to the country's increasingly affluent middle class.

Africa's growth story is encouraging more people to start their own businesses, with the aim of taking advantage of the huge opportunities especially in consumer-facing sectors.

In Nigeria, footwear manufacturer Maducho Luchi successfully tapped the country's vibrant fashion industry to produce footwear for local and international markets. 

In this interview, Graham Chike, sales and business development director at Maducho Luchi, narrates the company's challenging but rewarding journey of starting a contemporary African shoe line.

Tell us about Maducho Luchi

Maducho Luchi is a brand that is focused on designing and creating fashion products that are fused with a touch of African culture and a modern appeal. We kicked off the brand with men shoes and have plans to diversify in to other products in the near future. Our target is to create a system whereby fashion products from sub-Saharan African are appreciated overseas, thereby creating growth in several sectors of the economy on the continent. 

It all started in September 2012, when I met with my first creative director. Then there was no name to the brand. We just wanted people in the United Kingdom to experience shoes designed and made in Nigeria. They loved them, and in February 2013 when I returned home after completing my MSc degree, we started Maducho Luchi. The name Maducho Luchi came from a fusion of some African names. We had to think of something easy to pronounce, yet outstanding. Marketing brands today is different from what it was in the past. So one has to think of how a brand name can sell now and also in the future. It has been many ups and downs since then. We are over a year old now and I can say that we now have some good level of acknowledgement by users and celebrities. We have also managed to ship luxury shoes to many parts of the world and generated revenue that has kept the brand running smoothly. 

Why are most of your marketing campaigns focused on Europe and the Middle East? 

A lot of companies and brand facilitators really appreciate talent in these markets, so yes, we are deliberately focusing there. The fashion industries in Europe and Middle East are very keen to see new products. Smart designers take advantage and use that as a good path to success overseas which triggers success back home. 

How has the brand being received locally?

Brand appreciation in Nigeria has been wonderful. Some people love good craftsmanship here. And with little or no marketing, we have been able to grab a fair market share.

What strategies have you used to brand and market within Africa?

We have a big model waiting for good investors to buy in. We won’t let the cat out of the bag now. But once the investors come on board. It would spread like wildfire. A strong campaign that anyone who wants to copy would key into. But for now we only take on social media campaigns which is a growing trend in Africa. It has also done us well.

What challenges have you faced locally since starting Maducho Luchi?

Starting a brand in Nigeria is hard. We need more support but get less. The system doesn’t encourage good export trends. We don’t have a good market structure to engineer products so as to generate more jobs locally. You don’t get investors at the right time. And many others challenges.

How has Maducho Luchi managed to maneuver such challenges so far?

We have always set a goal and a target. The team has many technocrats, and most of us have schooled and worked in Nigeria and overseas - this has worked to our advantage. We leverage on this combined experience and education to overcome the challenges. We have firm goals - to produce and deliver an excellent product that will make our local and international customers happy. 

Is the market for luxury shoes sustainable in Africa? 

There is supporting data on the increasing demand for luxury products in Africa, and many international brands have already moved in to exploit the opportunities in countries like South Africa, Kenya, Angola, Ghana and Nigeria. So, there is definitely a big market for the shoes - we have done so well with very little marketing push. This is a profitable venture, and we really encourage investors to come on board. 

What advice would you offer potential startups in Africa?

A lot of fashion brands have come up in Africa and are now successful. In this line of business, it is possible to create a sustainable brand and profits. But one must have a firm plan, great passion and drive, and be ready to build a strong team because, as we say here, two brains are better than one. Find reliable and talented people who believe in your dream and you can make a fortune together. 

This article is re-published with permission from Frontier's content partner, Ventures Africa.