Fashion: Budding designers must sustain growth in 2018 – Ademiluyi

Budding fashion designers must sustain the present tempo of development in the fashion sector to enhance the nation’s GDP in 2018 and promote employment.

A fashion promoter and cultural ambassador, Princess Ronke Ademiluyi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the industry was no longer “a mere hobby’’.

She said that most of the designs that made waves in years past were from the creativity and genuineness of the young fashion designers.

The founder of Africa Fashion Week Nigeria and London noted that Nigerian designers had amazing designs which could compete with international standards.

“We can boast of so many amazing Nigerian designers. Our music, our fashion, our food are first choices for the international community because they are unique and enormous,” she said.

Ademiluyi also advised them to collaborate among themselves and with the government to ensure that more young designers flourished in 2018, saying they were the future of the industry.

The fashion promoter also said that the nation’s fashion industry had metamorphosed into a big-time business that could contribute hugely to the nation’s GDP if properly developed and harnessed.

She added that the country’s fashion had grown over the years from just a handiwork of interest into a viable and sustainable economic tool.

“The Nigerian fashion has really grown over the last decade and designers now see fashion as a business instead of a hobby as it was initially perceived,” she said.

Ademinluyi said the Nigerian fashion industry has been contributing its quota to the country’s GDP, but there is still room for improvement.

She added that additional improvement would come about with the encouragement of budding fashion designers to come into prominence.