Aisha — Emerging Designer of the Year

Saturday, March 13, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 3)

By Rebecca Kwei
At a first glance, petite Aisha Obuobi looks unassuming. And when I had a look at her Christie Brown collection, I was very impressed.
The neat cuts and the simple but nice designs using African prints laced with satin, silk or beads were just perfect.
Aisha (with the design label Christie Brown) is one of the new young designers on the scene and her work speaks volumes for a 24-year-old.
“I have always loved fashion. I love clothes and making them. Growing up, I used to help my grandma who was a seamstress by hemming a dress or fixing buttons. I was also making miniature clothes from the left over pieces of cloth. I guess that’s where my interest started” she reminisced.
However, while schooling at Morning Star and Achimota Senior High School, Aisha shelved her passion for fashion.
It was when she was in her final year at the University of Ghana, Legon, that her passion for fashion came back to her again.
“I majored in Psychology and in my final year, when I was thinking of which career path to take, then my love for fashion came back to me because really, that is what I’ve always loved doing” she said.
Consequently, Aisha started designing clothes for friends and in March 2008, she launched the Christie Brown label while at the university.
Christie Brown is a women’s clothing line and Aisha uses African prints vamping it up with silk, satin, beads and other accessories in modern trends.
When she completed her university education, she enrolled at the VogueStyle School of Fashion to undertake a one-year course in fashion design to learn more about what actually goes into making a garment.
While at VogueStyle School, she was invited to participate in Arise Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2009.
Her designs wowed the audience such that at the end of the fashion show, she was adjudged the Emerging Designer of the Year.
As part of her prize, she took part in the Paris Fashion Week which had alongside it the Arise L’Afrique a Porte fashion show.
There were 10 designers from Africa and Aisha was the only one from Ghana.
Having attended the Paris Fashion Week early this month, Aisha is back with a lot of ideas and in fact she is dreaming big.
Already Glamour Magazine has featured her as one of the women going to make headlines in 2010.
“I want to make African prints appealing to people of other origins by producing latest trends of all seasons that women love so much but with an African twist.
In the same vein I have realised most Ghanaians relate African prints to ‘kaba’ and slit or boubou and I want to change that perception. African prints can be used for trendy wear for all occasions and not just ‘kaba’ and slit,” she added.
Aisha observed that Ghana was not very much known on the international scene for its fashion and she hopes to give Ghana that visibility.
“I plan on participating in more international fashion shows and also produce a lot of ready-to-wear outfits using African prints.”
Aisha is also planning on opening a retail shop in Accra soon where people could easily walk in an pick up an outfit from the rack other than going to a tailor or seamstress to be measured before getting an outfit made for you.
“We don’t have that tradition where one can walk into a shop and pick up an outfit made from African print (standard dress sizes) and I want to establish that. It’s like buying a brand like Chanel, Dior and others,” she said.
Aisha said the fashion industry in Ghana was gradually picking up but there was the need to organise more fashion shows to give new designers the opportunity to showcase their creativity.
Also, she was of the view that a lot of fashion magazines need to be introduced into the country to let people know the various designers and their works so as to push the fashion industry in Ghana forward.
“It is also important for us designers to create designs that people can relate to or be able to wear. If we concentrate too much on the “over the top” designs that people cannot wear anywhere apart from the runway, then the public will not patronise our products,” Aisha added.
Aisha says Christie Brown is a breath of fresh air to the fashion industry, saying “our aim is to make wearable clothes for the modern Ghanaian woman who keeps abreast of developments and knows exactly what she wants”.
So what inspires Aisha? “Everything,” she says, from the environment to anything she lays her eyes on. Fashion designer Joyce Ababio also inspires her a lot.
Her parents are Derek and Thyra Obuobi and she has a brother, Nana Addo.
On why her label is christened Christie Brown, Aisha said “Christie Brown is my late grandmother’s name. She’s my inspiration for this clothing line. I guess that’s where I got my passion for fashion, beautiful clothes and the art of making them.
My grandmother sewed for the longest time; even when her eyesight was failing her. She was blunt to a fault, she had spunk, she was chic and most importantly she had style. These qualities are what Christie Brown clothing embodies — spunk, chic, women who are in tune with themselves”.