Before Ejiro Amos Tafiri stumbled on fashion designing at the Yaba College of Technology, she had wanted to be a medical doctor and she was passionate about this. But because she took a clothing and textiles subject back in secondary school, a decision she took when agricultural science became too boring for her, she got stuck with fashion following her experience during the excursion to YABATECH.
“One day, we went on an excursion to YABATECH and I was thrilled with what I saw. I saw that fashion was part of science, a bit of technical drawing and creativity too. It was everything I loved to do in one,” she said. Since the YABATECH trip, she could no longer think of any other thing but fashion designing. She, however, found it difficult to tell her parents and friends about her new-found passion.
“My parents knew I was quite creative, but they didn’t understand why I wanted to be a designer. I told them the right thing for me was to do what I wanted to do. It was difficult to convince them, but things became better gradually,” Tafiri says. As a designer, she likes her clothes to move in a certain way, describing herself as cosmopolitan.
“I like to tell African stories in international ways with my designs.
“I see regular things and use it in a way people will appreciate. You will see a lot of things in my store that are delicate.
When we make dresses, we think about the comfort and climate because we don’t want things that make people to sweat at all times,” she adds.
Speaking on ladies dressing scantily, Tafiri insists that because people have different creativity, personalities and reasons for wearing a particular design of clothes for different occasions.
“So, I will not say I am against people who wear certain clothes. If you dress appropriately for an event, it is fabulous. I think the problem comes when you wear the wrong thing in the wrong way. For example, your underwear is not expected to cover the whole of your body,” Tafiri says.
