By Patricia Uyeh,

The just concluded Lagos Fashion Week, Autumn/Winter’ 18 Presentations had fashion designers put their best foot forward, as they came out with different concepts and ideas on fashion.

One of the fashion designers that stood out at the 3-day event included Emmanuel Okoro, who is the brain behind the Emmy Kasbit label.

Vanguard Allure caught up with Emmy Kasbit in a chat. Read excerpts below:

Can we meet you?
My name is Emmanuel Okoro. I am the creative director for Emmy Kasbit. I am Abia state. I studied Computer Science in the University of Calabar.

Why did you go into fashion?
I went into fashion because I wanted to be among those few African designers that would put Africa in the world map. So this is me really following my passion.

What can you say about your collection?
They are ethical. They are clean and classy. I try to use vintage fabrics to bring into modern designs. The fabrics you saw are hand-woven  from Abia state mixed with corporate fabrics used to produce the vintage look.

What are the skills needed as a fashion designer?
You need to know the basics like knowing the client budget, giving them value for their money, choosing what can represent you so that people can see your work. 

Was there anytime a client was not satisfied with your work?
Of course things like that happen once in a while and that was in my early stages when I started fashion. So I went back to the drawing board, found out what was wrong and correct the fault to come back better. 

What are challenges you are facing in the fashion industry?
Production is slow. And our production, we don’t have access to everything like maybe someone wants to go into digital printing, we don’t have it here. So production is a big deal here but we are getting somewhere.

Photo credit : [email protected]