Technical Skills

How Aisha Ayensu Grew Her Global Brand With No Initial Technical Skills

Award-winning fashion designer Aisha Ayensu is well known for creating the stage costumes and clothing for Sandra “Alexandrina” Don-Arthur, Jackie Appiah, Genevieve Nnaji, and Beyonce. She is the creator and creative director of the Ghanaian fashion business, Christie Brown.

Founded in 2008, Christie Brown is a highend Ghanaian fashion brand. Traditional handmade skills are reinterpreted by Aisha Ayensu and incorporated with contemporary silhouettes.

A maker and marketer of women’s clothing and accessories, Christie Brown creates stunning custom gowns, wearable yet statement ready-to-wear, and avant-garde accessories predominantly influenced by African culture and art. Through its look and design, Christie Brown conveys its origins and is proudly Made in Africa.

She has been interviewed by Folu Storms and for the radio show In the Studio on the BBC World Service, and in 2016 she was named one of Forbes’ Most Promising Entrepreneurs.

Education and Career

Aisha Ayensu has competence in both fashion and psychology. She attended Achimota School for her secondary schooling and Joyce Ababio College of Creative Design for her training in fashion.

Aisha’s grandmother, the original Christie Brown, who was a seamstress but never owned a large fashion business, instilled her passion of fashion in Aisha. She made the decision to give the label her name in her honour. Aisha decided to begin the company in 2008 despite having no technical knowledge of how to stitch or draw a single pattern.

“I believed in this dream, I knew it was what we needed in this part at the time and I was really inspired to go ahead and pursue my dreams’’.

Aisha Ayensu realised she needed to enroll in a fashion school and fully immerse herself in the technical side of fashion once she founded the company.

She earned the “Emerging Designer of the Year Award” barely over a year after the fashion line was introduced, but she still felt that the world needed to see the side of Africa that she experienced daily.

The impact of social media on Christie Brown

Aisha Ayensu was able to show the world her talent with the help of social media, “Remember that this is a young brand starting out in Ghana, West Africa, how else will the world see what you’re doing, if there weren’t platforms like Facebook at the time’’ she said.

In Christie Brown’s case, the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected practically every industry, served as a catalyst for breaking through the glass ceiling. The label was able to host an online show to display its most recent line.

“We did everything on Instagram, we first started with IG live and it was super interactive, the comment section was amazing, we then transitioned to IGTV where the main show was aired’’ she pointed out.

Through that virtual show, the business was able to engage with over 30,000 viewers, which in turn helped their sales. Using Whastapp the label engages with its clientele locally and globally, especially when there are new pieces, Christie Brown, a brand that first catered to made-to-order customers before opening its first store, now produces ready-to-wear clothing and has opened an online store where prospective consumers can place orders and have their items delivered to them wherever they may be in the world.

Christie Brown accolades

Aisha Ayensu and Christie Brown have drawn a lot of attention from across the world. From being named one of Forbes’ 30 Most Promising African Entrepreneurs in 2016, Ayensu also won the African Designer of the Year award twice at Ghana’s Glitz Style Awards in 2018 and 2019.

Since its debut, Christie Brown has garnered praise from prestigious international fashion publications like Harpers Bazaar and Vogue Italia and has made waves in the West African fashion industry with its innovative selection of chic and wearable designs.

Wale Ameen

Profile Charlotte Mensah: Meet the Ghanaian Afro hair stylist putting African hair on the global map

Charlotte Mensah is to hair styling what Adele Dejak is to fashion accessories. She is a British and Ghaanian award winning hair stylist who has won several awards for her hair styling efforts. Charlotte is the founder and creative director of Hair Lounge, a multi award-winning salon situated on Portobello Road, London.

Charlotte made history in 2018 when she became the first black woman to be inducted into the British Hairdressing Hall of Fame.

Growing Up, Finding Passion

Sometimes, life events end up shaping and driving us in the direction we should go or what we are designed for. This scenario sums up Charlotte Mensah’s story and how she found her love for hair styling.

For Charlotte, it all started at the tender age of 13 when she lost her mother and was saddled with the responsibility of helping her younger sister with her hair. Life, it so happened, was only directing her to what would be her life’s mission.

Mensah was born in the United Kingdom and attended London College of Fashion, where she learnt the rudiments of fashion and all that she has been involved in ever since.

She would go on to perfect her hairstyling skills under the watchful eyes of Winston Isaac, known as the Godfather of modern British Afro Hairdressing.

She then went on to set up her own studio, Hair Lounge, in London in 1999, with funds awarded to her by The Prince’s Trust.

While many Africans have complained about a lack of skilled hands when it comes to the styling of African hair, which by nature is more textured compared to that of others from across the world, studios like Charlotte’s are some of the very few able to attend adequately to Africans and give their hair the unique treatment it deserves in the United Kingdom. Charlotte’s studio is one of the few perfect destinations for people of colour in the UK.

Wide array of clientele

Charlotte has a wide array of clientele which includes prominent fashion and beauty editors, and notable names such as

Chimamanda Adichie,

Janelle Monae, Eve,

Zadie Smith, and many other high networth individuals.

Charlotte Mensah Oil Hair careCare Products

In 2016, Charlotte launched her hair care range of products, the Charlotte Mensah Haircare range’ to wide acclaim within the hair care industry. The product line was created with the specific needs of Afro and curly hair textures in mind, with ingredients sourced from organic and sustainable ingredientssourced from around the African continent.

Recognitions and awards

Charlotte has won several recognitions for her efforts at styling afro/mixed heritage hair and is regarded as one of the industry’s most respected voices on textured hair.

Some of the awards she has received include: 20212 Weave Stylist of the Year and Hair Stylist of the Year at Beauty/Sensationnel Hair Awards; 2013 UK’s best Afro Hairdresser of the Year at the British Hairdressing Awards; 2014 UK’s best Afro Hairdresser of the Year at the British Hairdressing Awards; and the 2017 UK’s best Afro Hairdresser of the Year at the British Hairdressing Awards.

Charlotte is a consultant for a number of prestigious global hair care brands, including L’Oreal and GHD. She has collaborated with notable publications such as Elle, Stylist, and Refinery 29 on various projects.

Philanthropic efforts

Beyond being an entrepreneur, Charlotte has continued to give back to her home country of Ghana. Through her Charlotte Mensah Academy, young people in Ghana are impacted and given the opportunity to learn hair styling skills. With this, they are able to sustain themselves and their families. She also has a charity called L.O.V.E. (Ladies of Visionary Empowerment). The charity is charged with empowering young women from Africa with educational opportunities to better equip them.

By Wale Ameen

Profile Adele Dejak: Meet the Lawyer Turned Fashion Entrepreneur who is Turning Heads with her Creative Fashion Accessories

Nigeria, like the rest of Africa, is indeed blessed with creative minds and excellent brains. One such individual is the renowned fashion entrepreneur Adele Dejak.

Adele Dejak is a Nigerian-born lawyer, now fashion entrepreneur, based in Kenya where she churns out her fashion pieces from.

Her story is one that draws home the lesson the famous quote by Lewis Carroll which says, ‘’If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This simply means that to the man who has no destination, any and every road will do but with a clear cut vision. You have a clear direction on how to get there.

Her jewellery brand, which goes by her name, is one in which every piece exudes rich bright colours and a gentle eccentricity, handcrafted out of recycled materials. From handbags to bracelets, necklaces, rings, and earrings, each piece bearing an aesthetic feel that jumps at you every time.

In her words, her earliest fashion influence was her mother, and she learned very early how to sew, while her grandmother was her source of inspiration for beads.

Her interest in beadwork, African textiles, and the art of adornment has been with her since she was a child growing up in the northern Nigerian state of Kano, where she was born and raised.

Speaking with Industrieafrica, she says, “My love for African fabrics and beadwork started at a young age, and I remember going to the market to shop for fabrics and observing Hausa artisans who were skilled in beadwork and leatherwork,” she says. “I was fascinated by how the [North/West African] Fulani and Tuareg ethnic groups dressed and adorned themselves,” she said.

Even though she grew up with a growing love for the creative arts and wanted to pursue this further as a course of study, her parents objected strongly to this.

So, instead, she went on to read law and graduated with a Law degree from Middlesex University, and then, almost a decade later, went on to study typographic design at the London College of Communication with a determination to still pursue her love for creative arts and graduated with a Higher National Diploma in Typographic Design from LCC.

She never regrets her time studying law, as this laid the groundwork for her sojourn into the creative industry. Following her graduation from London College of Communication, she spent some time working in the typography design industry in England and Italy in the early 2000s, but this was rather short lived.

She moved to Kenya in 2005 and, three years later, launched her accessories label in 2008. Made from recycled brass and Ankole horns, which are usually found in East Africa’s breed of cows, she has gone on to make a name for herself in the fashion industry.

Dejak is a true inspiration and one who inspires everyone that comes across her array of designs. Of the lessons she has picked up over time as an entrepreneur, Adele says two stand out for her. And that is to always trust one’s gut feelings and the place of making sacrifices. As an entrepreneur, she says you have to take on the responsibility of providing for your employees, and that means ensuring that they are paid as and when due.