- Celebrates 45th Birthday With His Twin Brother
+25 Years Of His Fashion Label
These are happy times for Taiwo & Kenny Olayiwola who many call Taiwo & Kenny Jones. This is becuase as you read this, they are in celebration mood. They just completed the 2nd edition of their annual programme, Praising God With The Twins. They also recently celebrated their 45th birthday and 25th anniversary of Kehinde’s fashion label Kenny Jones. “I still remember how I started 25 years ago”, explained Kenny Jones. “I started by sewing suits then. I used to sew suits for men and skirts suits for women.”
“My journey started at 13/14, Oyewole road, Araromi area of Iyana Ipaja in those good old days. Then I moved to work at 58, Opebi road, at Jendors Place owned by Oga Jendor. They call him Jide of Jendor. I did my IT there for 1 year.”
“After IT, I went to work at 21, Ola Ayeni Street, Ikeja, close to Fela’s former shrine at Computer Village for some months. I then went on to set up my own. I started my own fashion label. The journey has not been easy. So challenging was it that some of those who started with us have left because they could not cope. That we are still in it is because of the grace of God and Mercy of God. Our beginning was rough. The hardship that we experienced, made it difficult for us to even eat 3 square meals.”
“It was a big problem. We lived in a single room at Gowon Estate with 5 of our friends. Despite all these predicaments, we still created time to praise God with out voices and instruments. Praising God is our secret to success”.
City People can authoritatively reveal that Kehinde and Taiwo came from a humble background. They are not privileged to have wealthy parents who can easily finance their education, but they developed themselves through the teaching and impartation of undiluted words they received from Evangelist Ebenezer Obey and Bishop David Oyedepo.
And these helped them to re-shape their lives and today Kenny Jones has become a household name that designs fabrics for the great minds in and outside the shores of Nigeria and his twin brother, Tiawo, is an outstanding talking drummer. He is also doing great as an interior furniture decorator. They debuted with an album entitled PRAISE GOD two years ago. And now they have a brand new one titled GOD BLESS NIGERIA. They are innovative composers with ability to draw from traditional Nigerian sounds.
Kenny Jones is lucky to be the designer of choice for many men of God and Very Important People. He designs for Bishop Oyedepo, Evangelist Ebenezer Obey, Pastor Kalejaiye of Redeemed Church, Pastor Wale Adefarasin of Guiding Light Assembly. He also designs for Vice President Osinbajo.
When he won the City People Fashion Designer of the Year award this year, he thanked all these men of God.
Kenny Jones’ passion for God and his respect for anointed men of God, many of whom he designs for, is common knowledge. He talks about God and the men of God he knows closely, all the time. Hear him: “All the men of God that have always been there for me, their words of advice and encouragement help me in no small way.”
“Let me mention some of the words that have impacted my life may be you too can learn something from it. They have all been a source of blessing to my life but for space I will only be mentioning few of them here.
Bishop David Oyedepo once told me not to pray for Money but to always pray for Wisdom.
Baba Obey as you all know, gave me the name Kenny Jones of the Universe. He once told me that if I am receiving (50,000) and I can not save out of it, when I start receiving (500,000), I will not be able to save anything. He made a Yoruba proverb “Omi tere tere l’ondibu” meaning –little drops of water makes an ocean.
Pastor Kalejaiye told me when we were dedicating our show room in 2011 that “If I am loaded, I will be needed” that I should prepare and load myself everyday so that I would be needed and he also prayed for me that day and my life has never remained the same.
Pastor Wale Adefarasin taught me how to love and pray for my nation. One day I was with him and he asked me, Kenny are you praying for Nigeria? He didn’t ask me whether I am praying for myself. Since then my mentality changed, concerning my dear country in terms of prayer.
Pastor Paul Adefarasin once called me and when I got there he said, “Kenny, sit down, I want to talk to you.” That was in 2012. He said “Experience is in 21 days and normally I am very busy with no time to waste. But he said, do you know that you must not fail Christ because you are an ambassador for Christ and that if you think like a tailor, you will drive the car a tailor drives, you will raise the child tailor raises. By now, I want you to think as an entrepreneur, like the Chairman of a Multinational and International business man. For three days I couldn’t sleep and uptill now I have not recovered from that word.
Pastor Mathew Ashimolowo gave me some international connections.
Pastor Femi Paul, the Pastor of Grace Assembly is a person I met who made and opened my eyes to more details on my job because he is a man of details. I want to throw this challenge to my colleagues. Anybody that is qualified as a good designer that can sew for him the first time without amending such cloth I will give such person (N500,000) cash through Pastor Femi Paul.
He is ordinarily not a complainer but a details person because he will show you an obvious mistake that you didn’t pay attention to. Sometimes when I worship with them I don’t feel like going home again.”
Today, I am dedicating the Award to God and all these great men of God that have impacted my life, sir I don’t know when you are giving me my own personal award. But this one is for the great men of God and I return all the glory to God.
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