Creative director Tesslo and winner, Nigeria’s Best Designer 2006, Tessy Oliseh-Amaize has called for the Ministry of Arts and Culture Intervention in Nigeria’s Fashion Industry.
The UK-trained designer who spoke on the popular Instagram Pidgin Vlog entitled Fashion Professor, said the development of regulatory frameworks to make the industry more profitable for designers.
Among the major obstacles in the fashion industry addressed by Oliseh-Amaize are the absence regulatory oversight, the proliferation of substandard fashion academies.
She pointed out that while designers invest time and resources into creating unique designs, they often face the problem of unauthorized replication by local tailors, an action she lamented, deprives designers of their rightful earnings, and the industry’s integrity.
Underscoring the importance of a regulatory framework for the industry, the designer contrasted it what is obtained in the transport where even motorcycles are required to have license plates. The lapses in standards, she argued, leaves designers vulnerable to exploitation and intellectual property theft.
Likening the proliferation of substandard fashion academies to a ‘pandemic’ within the industry, she said their lack of quality education and substandard practices erodes the industry’s credibility.
In her plea to the Ministry of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Oliseh-Amaize who acknowledged the need for the fashion industry, rather urged for its structured intervention to address these challenges.
Drawing parallels with the music industry where structured streaming systems enable artists to generate income long after peak years, she emphasized the importance of establishing a similar framework in fashion to support designers sustainably.
“The fact that we have numbers by population doesn’t mean we have structure to make these numbers profitable and sustainable for fashion designers,” she said.