By Vivian Onyebukwa Elsie Unuane Ordor is a third-generation fashion designer. Her grandmother and her mum were both fashion designers, and she has caught the bug. She started off by taking over her mum’s company.
Her company, Maison-de-Helen Couture Ltd, meaning “House of Helen” in French, is a combination of her mother’s name, Helen and her name, Elsie. In this interview, Elsie, who has been in the industry specifically for 12 years, spoke about fashion designing, marketing and sales in fashion business, among others. How did you find yourself in fashion designing? I started of by studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham, London.
Then I went and did my Masters in Brunel University, UK in Environmental Sciences Law and Management. When I returned to Nigeria, my mum wanted to retire, so she was looking for a manager. She asked me if I was interested in taking over her business.
That was how I took over the company. It was just a little small fashion brand when I took over because in her days, she was very big, but at that time she was reducing her staff strength. She brought it into her house, using a couple of rooms because she still had customers.
She had her tailors that used to sew for her friends and people around. So when I took over, I continued and was making clothes for people at the time. I got into ready-to-wear, creating my own designs, and I saw that a lot of people were interested in it.
I remember staring off with N55,000 with which.
