January 21, (THEWILL) – London-trained fashion designer, Emmy Collins, may be different things to different people: Eclectic, avant-garde, highly opinionated and overly confident. Call him what you like, but his contribution to the fashion and style industry cannot be over-emphasised. He speaks with IVORY UKONU about his passion for fashion, his defunct controversial blog and what he thinks of the ongoing revolution in the industry. Excerpts:
You have been away from the Nigerian fashion scene for about 10 years, preferring to operate in London where you are based. Now you are back with a bang. Why did you decide to come back?
I have always had Nigeria at the back of my mind. The first time I had an opportunity to sell my brand in Nigeria was in 2007. My brand was just about three years-old but because of my love for Nigeria, I grabbed the opportunity to open up shop here when it presented itself. In fact the money I used to open up shop was a loan I got from the bank which I should have used to grow my brand back in London, but I decided to invest it in Nigeria. And then I left. But I never stopped thinking about the country. I knew I was going to come back and so I followed up keenly on what was happening in the industry.
I came back in 2019, but had issues with the owner of the service space I got who reneged on our agreement after spending almost N20 million. That wasn’t inspiring for me. I was like a girl who had been raped and had to keep seeing her rapist every single day. It almost became a court case. It was too much for me to handle and I had to pack my bags and go back to London.
I would say that was the toughest but the best decision that I ever made because I didn’t leave in anger and it gave me time to realise certain things that I needed to do to project the Emmy Collins brand and so I worked towards it for my eventual return. At the end of the day, the negative aspects of 2019 turned out to be immense blessings on my return.
So are you back for good?
I will be going back and forth, but I will eventually get to a point where I will confidently say Nigeria is my base.
How have you settled in since your return?
Very well. Coming back, I told myself that I have to make Nigeria work for me because eventually, like I said earlier, Nigeria is going to be my base.
You don’t feel deterred by the peculiarity of the environment?
Not a bit. For a lot of us who are returning home, it is all about the mindset. If you step in with a wrong mindset, you will be overwhelmed by that peculiarity, but as far as I am concerned, there isn’t much difference between Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Whatever works there, works here as well, it depends on how you apply them here. We have laws in Nigeria, just as we have in the UK. The only difference is that the laws are not applied here. There is no repercussion for certain actions. Besides, I am here with the mindset that regardless of what is happening in Nigeria today, I am here to stay.
Since you left, there has been an upsurge in the number of young designers challenging the status quo. Aren’t you afraid of competition?
No. I actually encourage young designers. Back in the day, I floated what was called the Free Fashion Workshop in Lagos, focusing on the quality of tailoring, business of fashion and other nitty-gritties of fashion. I did it with my money and contacts. I eventually got Aero Contractors to sponsor it because I wanted these young guys to grow. I have never felt that I am in competition with anyone because I am on a different lane totally. You cannot see what Emmy Collins is doing to any person, anywhere in the world or in Nigeria. I can categorically tell you that because I have searched. But that doesn’t mean that Emmy Collins is better than everybody. I am simply saying that I am in my little zone all by myself. If you like any Emmy Collins design, you can only get it at my place or at a stockist’s because no one has the nerve to do what I am doing. Everyone has their own design which I respect, but I have never been afraid of competition because I have never towed the line or latched on to trends. I am anti-trend. When fashion goes in a certain direction, I am going in the opposite direction.
Are you saying nobody can replicate your design?
People can copy, but if you are not Emmy Collins, you are not Emmy Collins and people will find out sooner than later.
What do you offer different from what others are offering?
I am particular about the form of an African, with a Nigerian in mind. A lot of foreign brands do not bear us in mind when they design. They design for the European market. That is all they care about. But when I design, I think about the shape and form of the average Nigerian man or woman. I know how we are built and that is why you can enter an Emmy Collins show room, it doesn’t matter what size you are, we will clothe you and give you what is known as the illusion of a curve, which is what makes people want to wear their clothes tight. But you don’t have to do that with our clothes because the curve that you’re looking for has been incorporated into the shirt. The shirt will be loose, but the curve will be there. In addition, I pay so much attention to detail, quality stitching in particular. In Nigeria, I think we pay less attention to detail and the quality of stitching and that is what lets us down every day. If Nigerian designers desire to be respected outside Nigeria, we need to fix that and we must fix it now.
How would you compare the evolution of the Nigerian fashion industry now with what it was 10 or 15 years ago?
It hurts me to say this, but the only way I believe we can help the industry is to look it in the face and say it as it is. The industry is like a passion. Without passion, you can’t move forward. A lot of money is being invested in the industry, especially with shows here and there, but the return on investment is too minimal. Imagine that we pay to invite people from outside the country and we put them in top hotels. This costs a lot of money, in dollars (we don’t pay with naira). And what do we get from this? Individual success.
When we start winning individually, no country moves forward like that because we have to win collectively. In all these years that the shows have been going on, what major structure has been put out there to encourage the next generation? How have we moved from point A to point B? Nothing tangible. We are just going round in circles, doing the same thing every single time. People see shows as improvement, but, hell no, it is not.
Well, some will argue that shows are for visibility and presence
Now when it comes to visibility, one thing I have learnt is that if you do not have what to showcase, that is something that has quality, then don’t showcase anything. Take your time and wait until you have it. We bring in the foreign media to see what we have to showcase, which isn’t necessarily of good quality, and they will take this out of Nigeria with the impression that we are not big on quality. I mean, we pay top dollar for people to come into Nigeria and they take their negative impression about us out of the country and run with it in their press. That is not good. The only advantage that I will say I have over a lot of people in this industry is the fact that I have gone through training as a fashion designer. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in fashion from London Metropolitan University and I have a diploma in fashion business management from Portabeleu Fashion Business Centre, South-West London. What I am trying to say is that a lot of these people do not know how the industry works.
You know sometimes when you criticise, it is always good to do so from the inside. So I then got involved with one of these shows. I was contracted, put in one of these fancy hotels. And with me was an Australian buyer with one of these top online stores. So, one of those mornings when we met for breakfast, we began a conversation and he was telling me about a certain fashion brand, which was part of the show, inviting him to come over to their show room. The guy refused to go. He told me that what the brand had was ‘rubbish’. Those were his exact words. Imagine how I felt. He was talking about my fellow Nigerian fashion designer and I couldn’t even look him in the face and tell him that he is full of crap because I knew he had a point. And this guy left Nigeria with that impression and the owner of the brand is someone I know personally. Each time I see this person. That is all I remember.
Don’t you think you should have told this individual about the buyer’s opinion?
Why? I have had that kind of conversation in the open in the past. I am having that same conversation now so if the brand owner wants, now is the time to key in. I don’t have to go to people individually. And you know how we are, we take offence for being told the truth. So, moving forward, I decided I wasn’t going to allow myself to be used in that manner. It is not worth my time and emotion. It is not helping the industry and Nigeria.
In other words, you don’t think the industry has evolved much?
The good news is that it will take just a little time and effort for us to get to our destination. Until we have people with passion in the fashion industry, we are not going to evolve as fast as we should. We can’t keep forcing round pegs in square holes. We can do all the fashion shows that we can, but that will not provide the jobs that the teeming youths in the industry needs The UK is just about 80/90 million people. We are over 200 million people, in Nigeria but the fashion industry in the UK employs about 1 million youths directly.
That is because the UK government is also involved in the fashion business. Here, the government doesn’t in any way
Well, yes, you can say that, but the industry work with people with passion for the craft, people who cut their teeth in the industry and invested in the industry with their own personal money. What I am trying to say is that the fashion industry needs people who will invest in it not those who want to take out of it because there is not much to be taken out.
It is nauseating to say this, but we seek validation from people who should be seeking validation from us. What I know, having been around the world, is that everyone is stylish in Nigeria in their own way. We need to be doing our own thing and do it very well. The world is a global village so they (developed nations) will find us as long as the quality of what we are providing is good. I am of the opinion that we should service our local market first before paying top dollar to seek validation from Europe and America. The population of Nigeria is half the size of Europe, imagine having access to that number.
Yes we have the numbers but our fashion designers prefer to be called luxury designers out of the reach of the common man. How do you service over 200 million people who cannot afford luxury?
That is why the Emmy Collins brand is thinking about a diffusion line in Nigeria. I have never believed that fashion should be above the reach of anybody. I don’t believe one needs money to be stylish. As long as you know how to put things together and style your body frame, then you are good to go. So when you say Nigerian designers put outrageous price tags on their brands, it still boils down to that training I talked about, fashion business management, because all they are doing is pricing themselves out of the market.
How would you define the Emmy Collins brand?
It is a brand that doesn’t believe in following trends. It is about authenticity, cuts, designs and originality.
I want to believe that your personal style is incorporated into your brand
Oh, very much so.
So the Emmy Collins brand is your style personified?
Yes and no. Yes because anything I cannot wear, I cannot sell. That has always been my mantra. But if you ask me where my inspiration comes from, it is from the style of the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Jimmy Hendricks, Marvin Gaye, etc. Basically my inspiration comes from the style of black musical artists of the 1960s and 70s which I transform and make to look modern.
Will you be offering the womenfolk something from the Emmy Collins brand?
I am working on it. When it comes to women’s wear, it is actually borderline laziness on my part because it takes more energy for me to come up with women’s designs. But what many don’t know is that for every single Emmy Collins piece, there is a feminine wear in it, meaning that I can easily transform a typical Emmy Collins piece into a womens wear in a jiffy even without changing the fabric.
Does this explain why you are very colourful with your fabrics?
I have always been about colour. I have always been bold back in the day, even when it was not fashionable to be so in Nigeria. But things have since changed in this landscape as I now see more colours and more boldness in people’s design. In that regard, I will say the fashion industry has evolved.
Do you plan to incorporate native attires to what you offer?
The thing about fashion is that one can’t be the same thing to everyone at the same time. The mistake I see being made is that we try to move from one thing to the other without consolidating at one thing and then gradually moving on to the next and that is why you see a new brand doing virtually everything and they suffocate under it because it requires a lot of resources. So back to your question. At some point, I might, but I need to be inspired to do so in the Emmy Collins way.
How long has your brand been in existence?
This year will make it 20 years, but to be honest, if I must be factual, it has been in existence since I was nine years-old.
What would you say has kept you going?
Passion. There have been times I left the industry to take up menial jobs to raise some money and return to designing. The only reason I could have done that is passion. When I was trying to return to Nigeria, people thought I was crazy, especially with the crazy dollar exchange rate. But I didn’t care, it had to happen, now or never. That is fueled by passion.
When I began my brand, there was a place called Florentia Clothing Village in London. Some of us designers were quartered there by the London Development Agency. Because we were new designers, we couldn’t afford the real rent, but they believed that we would grow and do great things in the industry. So they were willing to invest in us with part rent for the studios. Of the 12 of us then, I am the only one still in the industry today.
Designers in Nigeria complain about a legion of problems that prevent them from operating optimally. From power to staff, to taxation, forex, etc. Which of these has a strong choke on you?
Power. The noise alone that emits from the generating set is unsettling. I cannot work with the noise because I need that tranquility to be able to articulate designs which I do. I do not leave the job to my staff to do.
What would you say has been your greatest achievement?
My third coming. For the first time, I am actually in control of everything from design to production and that is what I have always wanted. I vet and employ tailors and expect them to do what I ask them to do. So if anything comes out of my Lagos factory that is below par, I am wholly responsible for it. In the UK, I create my samples and I have to work with the factories and when you work with the factories, you have to be careful what you complain about. I have been thrown out of factories in the past. I have been banned from factories because if the end product is not good, it is not good. Emmy Collins will not accept any inferior work.
What is the story behind the Emmy Collins brand, how did it really start out?
Like I told you earlier, the Emmy Collins brand has been ongoing since I was nine years-old. Three of my sisters were seamstresses. By the time I was 10 years-old, I could tell the sound of a Singer sewing machine from others. My godfather used to have one of the biggest fabric supply stores in Umuahia, Abia State then. So my mum would send me to him on festive periods to get fabrics. Since the place was always busy, he would take a while before attending to me, but he would let me go in and just play with fabrics. So I have had a relationship with fabrics right from that young age. When it comes to choosing the right fabric, I have been making such decisions for a long time. Many designers have a problem deciding the best fabric to work with and which design fits which fabric. It is a difficult decision to make because back in the UK when I order for swatches, I get swamped with about 5,000 swatches and I need just about 10 or less to work with. So how do you choose 10 out of 5,000 swatches? So when I eventually get these fabrics for my mum, I would take mine to the tailor’s. Other kids would go with their mothers, but I was the only kid who would tell the tailor exactly what I wanted. I fell out a lot of times with the tailor but he eventually came around.
Some other designers would probably not have bothered to go through formal education if they had to learn all about designing and sewing from their seamstress sisters. But you did. Why?
Let me shock you. I do not believe that you have to be formally educated to become a world class designer. Actually, formal education is overrated. There is an apprenticeship school if you are not cut out for formal education. I went to the university to study fashion because I wanted to and in fact, it was a later decision. I believe in learning because you stagnate when you don’t learn about new skills in your field. And these days, the internet is right there to acquire these knowledge. It is all about what the individual wants.
In the fashion business, there are designers, tailors and fashion entrepreneurs. Which category do you fall into specifically?
I am all of them. You have to be all of them to know exactly what you are doing, especially if you do not have a bottomless pit of money. But regardless of if I have a bottomless pit, I am a micro manager.
Do you plan to replicate your Fashion Workshop project to transfer your wealth of fashion knowledge to up and coming designers?
Sure, I will. I am going to set up a proper fashion school in Nigeria in conjunction with a couple of my guys in the UK. For me, coming back home isn’t to make money but to make a serious impact because I have been in the industry long enough. I should be giving something back. Nigeria gave me nothing, but it doesn’t matter.
Do you belong to any fashion body in Nigeria?
No.
Why not?
I don’t even know how I should register. Besides, I disagree with a lot of them because I would give a limb to find people who genuinely want to move the fashion industry forward. If these fashion bodies were actually doing their job, I don’t think the industry will be where it is today. That being said, I am a member of the British Fashion Council.
You once ran a blog, ‘diarybyemmycollins’ which is now defunct. It was noted for its ‘vicious’ attack, so to speak, on celebrities both home and abroad, regarding their style and choice of clothing. Do you plan to revive it?
The blog was simply an avenue to voice out my opinion on anything but mostly about fashion and offer alternative views. It was born out of frustration. I was frustrated by the things I was seeing on the fashion scene. That blog might just be one of the reasons I am here today because Nigerians communicated with me inbox rooting their support for me. And just recently, I got a message asking when I would be reviving it because the fashion scene needs to be sanitised. It wasn’t set up to correct anomalies or to personally attack individuals like most people thought.
Of course, I am aware that Nigerians are not used to someone voicing out their opinion, so will always misconstrue opposing views for personal attacks or what the politicians call ‘political attacks’. That is the oldest trick in the book, and I am well experienced enough to recognize that and I must categorically state that I am not fazed by that all. So, it may not come back the way it was set up, but the meat of the matter will still be the same. What creatives in Nigeria do not understand is that we need to have critics around us or else we will end up thinking that we are all that and then you no longer grow because for every single piece created, one can do better with the designs.
How do you unwind?
Observing people. I know it sounds weird, but it is actually inspiring to me. The strangest people have actually inspired my pieces in the past. I also like to eat out.
