•What She Told City People About Her Life
Hajia Abah Folawiyo will be 80 in a few days’ time. But you won’t believe it when you see her. She looks good. She is actually called Sisi Abah because of her good looks. She has looked good for decades. Don’t forget she is a leading fashion designer who has dominated the fashion scene since the 80s with her Labanella fashion label. She is also one great designer who all the younger ones look up to as role models. She is the widow of late industrialist, Alhaji Wahab Iyanda Folawiyo.
Despite her hubby’s death years ago, she has coped with the life of a widow.
At 80, she has become a lot more religious.
She has lost so much weight. She now looks trendy and slim. Nothing about her really has changed. She is still the same old jovial Sisi Abah who is friends with several generations of women. She has a long list of friends made up of women her age who she’s been friends with for the past 4 decades. She is also friends with those younger than her, like the Ita Giwas, Erelu Dosunmus, who are in their 70s. Then comes those in their late 50s and 60s like the Bola Sagayas, and then the 40s and above like the Funmi Ladipos, and then the generation of her granddaughters who though she is many years older than them, see grandma Abah Folawiyo as their friend. How has this woman been able to make and sustain her friendship with all these generations of women?
These and many of such questions agitated the mind of City People publisher, SEYE KEHINDE when he kept a date with this grand dame of fashion at her sprawling Ikoyi home in Lagos several years back. Below are excerpts of her interview.
How do you feel being in your 70s?
I feel the same. I am still the same Sisi Abah you’ve known for decades from the 70s, up till now, nothing has changed, life goes on. Life continues.
How come Sisi Abah was able to dominate the social scene for the past 5 decades and she is still relevant today?
It is the Grace of God. I am a very happy person. There is no dull moment with me. I have been a very calm person, a very happy person. Maybe that is why God has been able to sustain and keep me the way I am.
What has been the difference when you were 50, 60, 70 and now 77?
No difference at all. I have always been the same Abah everybody knows. No changes at all. I have kept myself to remain the same.
What sort of a person is Sisi Abah?
No. I don’t have any view of myself. I have not changed at all.
What are the lessons you’ve learnt in life?
A lot. Being a good person. Being very accommodating and taking people as they are. I have a lot of friends, a lot and I have been able to keep all of them intact as friends. I don’t fight with my friends. I keep them as friends. I study them and I keep them the way they are and I interact with all my friends the way each one is. That is why we are still friends today.
What’s the secret behind your long-standing relationship with different sets of friends, both young and old and even with the difficult ones? How does your relationship with one not affect the other one?
By accepting each one of them the way they are, and whatever they do. The old and young love me and I love them. I relate very, very, well with all of them.
What lessons did you pick up from your mum that has kept you going?
My mum is just like me. She is a very nice woman. She interacts with everybody, old and small. I look up to her. I am just like her.
Can you tell us about your past? Where you were born? And your growing-up years?
I was born in Ilorin. My grandfather was working there. That is where my father met my mother and they had me there. And from when I was a baby, they moved me to Accra. That is where I lived till I grew up to be myself. My mother is from Ghana. My dad is Nigerian from Ijebu-Ode. Most people don’t know that I am from Ijebu-Ode. In Ghana, it is the woman who owns the child.
That is why I am more close to Ghana than to Nigeria.
What are the tips you picked up from Ghana that has worked for you?
You know it is very quiet there. It is not a fast life like we have in Nigeria.
They are not the go, go, go, type like us in Nigeria.
How did your going into fashion start?
From my mum. All my family members are dressmakers. They are all designers. Some of the men are even dressmakers. I got it from my mum. It was in-born in me. I met her as a dressmaker. I grew up seeing her sew and design. I grew up seeing her working on fabrics. I used to help her. That is how I developed my passion. She wanted me to do something else. She wanted me to be a lawyer. I told her no mummy. Law is too much book. It is too much. Let me face this my cut and sew business that I met you doing. I am glad I made it and I love it.
Apart from training under her, did you also go for training elsewhere?
No. I didn’t go for any other training anywhere. Many years ago, I went to England and I went to a fashion school and I wanted to start learning. I saw what they were doing and I had already known beyond that. I thought it would be a waste of time, so I kept to myself. I didn’t go for training anywhere else apart from my mum.
What was the fashion industry like at the time you went into it?
The fashion industry was zero, nobody appreciated dressmaking then. We used to call it dressmaking. Ready-made clothes were the in-thing then, that was the big business then, in Nigeria everybody was into it then, and nobody appreciated dressmaking or what the few designers were doing then. Nobody.
You keep talking of dress-making. Is it the same as designing or tailoring? What’s the difference?
They are all one and the same. If you are a designer, you design and make dresses.
I design my clothes and I make them. I join the 2 together.
I don’t draw. My design is in my brain, I put it down on the table and the tailors follow it.
At the time you were setting up your fashion business LABANELLA, what did you have in mind? And have you been able to achieve it?
Yes. I started with Cotton and Linen. I particularly love working with Cotton. I love prints too. I started using prints. And nobody was buying them from my factory. I kept to it and I continued using it. But now, the whole world has gone into prints, even in. Europe, they now do African prints. When I started off, business was very slow. The kind of money they make now I never made such. I never charged as exorbitantly as they charge now. Even if you had charged such, people wouldn’t even buy it. People didn’t appreciate what we do in Nigeria. It was Obasanjo that helped us when he became head of state and banned all these imported and ready-made clothes and dresses and fabrics.
And that was when my factory started booming and people realized what we were doing. People bought my designs then and they took it abroad to China to go and copy and they now bring them back and sell them in Nigeria. Thanks to President Obasanjo.
When you started Labanella, how small was it at the beginning?
It was not small. When I started LABANELLA, my husband then, put the factory together for me. It was a surprise for me. It was in a whole building with a factory at the back and a showroom in front. Then, I was doing business, flying to England, flying abroad to get pieces to bring back here to come and sell. He wanted me to do what I know how best to do. He said “No. Abah, you must do what you know how best to do and that is Fashion Designing.” So, he began to do this place slowly, I never knew of it.
So, one day, I just woke up, and he got the building for me on Adeniran Ogunsanya in Surulere. He put all the machines there. He bought them from Adebowale Stores. They were about 50 machines, plus cutting table. He put everything I will need to make a dress. He called me one day and said “follow me. I have a surprise for you, come.” I followed him. When I got there, I was shocked. The factory was already opened. It was a big factory with a boutique in front, with nothing inside, so I started producing clothes and I began to put it inside the boutique. That was how I started in the late 70s.
Over the years, you’ve built a big name, a solid name in fashion. How do you feel each time you look back at the evolution of the industry and what you have been able to do with fashion?
I will say I am fulfilled, very very happy. And that is why I appreciate all the dress designers, Tailors and everybody in the industry. They appreciate me as well. Then, it was just a few of us. Shade Thomas, late Joyce Obong and I were into that business of Dressmaking.
Years back, our mothers used to call themselves Seamstress. These days, the younger ones call themselves Fashion designers. Is it the same thing?
We all do the same thing. It’s all the same thing. You can be a Tailor, a Seamstress, a Designer, you know, we are all into dressmaking. We all belong to one group, surrounded by different names. It depends on what you want to call yourself. But it’s all about clothes. It’s all about wearing clothes for people. It’s all about making clothes for people to wear.
How have you been able to sustain your LABANELLA brand over the years? Many of us grew up knowing Labanella and the name Sisi Abah. You have been there and you are still there. What’s the secret?
I stick with my design, and the look I want people to have of me. I have not changed my looks for years.
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