People usually see the glam, but never really the work that goes into achieving it. This doesn’t just apply to the perfect magazine cover or the flawless red carpet style; It is very much Jane Michael Ekanem‘s life story.
Before she became the huge and (still) rapidly growing brand she is today, Jane was an undergraduate hauling cufflinks and clothes from one office to the other around Lagos in a bid to make ends meet. Selling the clothes and accessories also meant she had to offer opinion to her customers on how to style them. She’d been offering the second service for free for a while before it occurred to her that she could actually make some money off it. And that was how her styling journey officially began, almost a decade ago.
In her 10 years working in the fashion industry, she has gone on to style every season of Nigeria’s foremost music talent show, Project Fame, she’s styled virtually all the biggest celebrities and personalities in Africa from Chimamanda Adichie to Tiwa Savage and Bonang Matheba; she’s also launched an eponymous fashion label which in just two years of its debut has made quite the impression in the country’s fashion scene.
In this interview, I sit down with her to talk about her remarkable journey, what drives her, the Nigerian fashion industry and the hotly debated issue of Vogue Africa among other things.
Watch below!
