Fashion designer, Mai Atafo, tells Ademola Olonilua why he left the corporate industry to become a fashion designer
Why are you always clean shaven?
When I shaved my hair a long time ago, my girlfriend at the time decided to marry me. So in order to keep her, I thought that I should maintain the hair style. I like it because I think it is easier to maintain. I think that as you grow older, you tend to do things that you are more comfortable with. I am not that comfortable with my beard but my wife likes it. I am growing it for her but at the end of the year, I am taking it off. I have kept it for two years and that was our deal.
You are always wearing three piece suits. How many of them do you have in your wardrobe?
If I tell you I do not know, that would be the truth. Apart from my wardrobe in the house, I have another one in the office. As I make suits for clients, I make for myself which I keep in my personal wardrobe in the office. So I don’t know the number of suits that I have but, I don’t think I have less than 30 suits.
How come you hardly wear African attire?
I do wear natives and I make them too. Funny enough, the time I wear them are not the times I make public appearances. Most times I wear them when I go to church and these days, I wear them on Fridays.
What was your recent fashion show, Savilrow, about?
I would take you back to history; the English man makes the suits. There is a street in Mayfair, London, called Savilrow. It is a street known for producing the best suits in the world, literally. That craftsmanship has been going on for over 200 years. What they have done is, as time goes by, they try to modify the way the suits are made to suit recent trends and comfort. It is supposed to be a master-school for suits making. What I did recently is that I brought to Nigeria a master tailor, who has over thirty years of experience in making suits on Savilrow to train me and my guys for two weeks on how to make perfect Savilrow English bespoke suits. He came here with all the tricks of the trade and he trained us on exactly how to cut a suit. If you can cut a suit to international standard, then you are making a suit for the world. I try to be the best there is in the world. I don’t see Nigeria as my boundary, I see the world as my village and I want the whole village to know about me. The man I brought has made clothes for everyone in the royal family apart from the queen, top actors like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Halle Berry, among others. Right now, we are Savilrow Academy certified, the only one in Africa. It means that the suits we make are better, lighter and more comfortable. We spend 80 hours making a suit but the end result justifies the means.
How did you get into fashion designing?
I was not one of those that had an interesting story. I just loved nice clothes as a young person but I did not go into fashion designing like that. I studied Agricultural Economy and Extension for my first degree at Edo State University and my second degree was at City University, London, where I studied Information System Technology. I got back into the country in 2002 and I worked with the British American Tobacco for about four years. Then I moved to Guinness Nigeria Plc where I worked for about four years. I left there in 2010 as senior brand manager before I went into fashion full time. I started the fashion business when I was in Guinness but when I could no longer combine the two, I decided to go for fashion full time.
How did you cope with the change, leaving a reputable job to becoming a fashion designer?
There were times I was down and asked myself if I made the right decision. I came in from a very mediocre point whereby I loved what I was doing and I went to do it. But fashion is not just a passion; it is a business. As long as you are not on top of your game business-wise, you are just making a fool of yourself. The most important thing in fashion is that you design things and people buy, give you money so that you can do more. Without that exchange of money, nothing is going to happen to you. People look at it as making clothes but they are wrong. You are making money, you are a trader who trades in clothing. I call myself a trader, I make clothes to sell. The most important thing is that you are a businessman. When I left Guinness to pursue this, I did not go to pursue only business but a passion. The only thing that kills passion is poverty.
How come you make clothes mostly for celebrities?
It is because they like what I do. They come to me, I don’t go to them. Everybody likes beautiful things, when they see beautiful things, they want them, when they want a beautiful thing, they come to me and that is the true story. There is nobody that I have clothed right now that I have actually gone to knock at their door asking them to wear my stuff. I don’t think that there is anybody that has a name that I have not clothed in the industry.
When it comes to fashion, what is your weakness?
It changes. At a point in time, it was my glasses but I think now it is my shoes.
What is the highest amount you have paid for a pair of shoes?
I am not very lavish when it comes to things like that, the most expensive pair of shoes I have bought cost about £300 and that is about N75,000. I am very prudent when it comes to spending
Your line of work makes you deal with a lot of women, doesn’t your wife feel threatened?
Think about it this way, if your job entails you work with a lot of men, would your wife think you are a gay? I think everything boils down to the individual. If you are put in a situation whereby there could be compromise, it would have to depend on you. If you work in a brewery, it does not make you a drunk, neither are you a chain smoker because you work in a tobacco factory. That you work with a lot of women does not mean you should be frivolous. It depends on you at the end of the day. Anybody can exercise an element of fear sometimes but I think it largely depends on the individual.
What were the challenges you faced starting your business?
To start with, there was no platform to be mentored or mentor people about fashion. Apart from that, there is no support from the government and power supply is my biggest problem. All my machines are industrial machines and they need to keep working so I pay at least N200, 000 every month to make sure I have power.
When stepping out for an occasion, what do you bear in mind?
I dress for the occasion. Whatever the function is, I know what it is and make sure my dressing suits that. Punch
