Sometimes you post your pictures on social media knowing that you are just having fun, and true to it, you get to have your fun.
Sometimes, you post them and knowingly get to inspire people from far and wide.
Maybe it’s with your captions, your beauty, or just your authentic self.
She did not know that people were getting inspired by her sense of fashion, especially the African designs and prints that her mother and grandmother instilled in her.
On her Facebook page, she was captivating people from all over. Was it her skilled tailor, her huge fashion sense, or a combination of both?
How was she going to explain that she randomly chose these prints and her tailor did the best job?
She saw that there were people whom she would inspire and those who looked up to her.
Little did she know that by continuously posting her fashion sense, she was forming a community.
That’s the true story of one beautiful African queen who built a loyal Facebook community that was brought together by their common appreciation of African fashion, or rather; Maureen’s sense of it.
Maureen Ayite was born and raised in Benin.
She studied sign languages and she had a passion for learning linguistics and even being a multilingual.
During her years in the university, she started posting her daily outfits on Facebook just to keep up with the trend.
Her regular posts and cute outfits led to her having a very large audience of followers.
Even before she knew it, she would regularly post and someone would ask her where she got her outfits from.
Sometimes people would put so much pressure on her to plug them with the source but to her, she was just having fun.
Also, how was she going to tag her grandma and tailor who didn’t even know that Facebook existed then?
Anyway, how did Maureen move from just posting her random pictures to owning one of the biggest fashion brands in Africa?
During her journey of getting to post her pictures, she created a group called “I like African prints.”
Through this group, she realized that many people loved African prints but most people did not know how to design them and who to trust to design them beautifully.
She wasn’t aware of the high demand that people had regarding African prints.
During that time, she applied to do an internship in sign language at an institution in France and got accepted.
After taking a little of the scholarship money, she decided to take this leap of faith and let people into her sense of fashion and maybe try and earn a living.
Therefore, she invested some of the scholarship money in her tailor and made several designs and outfits. She was making these outfits and paying attention to details and smart branding.
After all, people loved pretty details, especially pretty details on an African print… legendary, iconic even.
Before her departure to France, she posted on the page that she would be selling those clothes in Paris and people who needed them, especially those in France should come and check them out!
Maureen was cautious about making many designs because of the probability that maybe the clothes wouldn’t sell as much. Luckily, if they didn’t, she would have added another set of designs to her closet!
She wasn’t expecting a huge turnout. She was just trying to get this leap of faith and maybe tell herself that at least she tried.
On the sales day, a huge number of people really turned up and she couldn’t believe how huge the demand was. She was excited about making her first sales and was also excited about having to get it right.
Sometimes being in a country and surviving on the scholarship money can be very difficult. Maureen therefore decided to be intentional with the fashion side hustle.
The turnout of potential clients that day opened her eyes to the fact that maybe she didn’t need the internship as much as she thought. That marked the birth of Nanawax.
Nanawax is a company that designs and makes clothing, especially African prints, and sells to various countries.
Today, Nanawax is one of the leading fashion lines for African print designs and clothing. She was able to work between Benin and France while making sure that the most qualitative material was received.
Maureen had her grandma who would wax materials sometimes and help her in the selection before sending her ideas to the tailors.
The back and forth between Benin and France was eye-opening to the marketing trends in each country. Nanawax expanded to more than just African prints into a variety of clothing, accessories, and shoes for men, women, and children.
After completing her internship, she went back to Benin and continued through with the Nanawax.
To her surprise, she was able to sell more while in Benin than while she was in Paris. Africans had access to these prints but not to good tailors who would keep up with current design trends.
Moreover, most Africans don African print designs for most events in West Africa than is done in France. Her market grew and she expanded into neighboring countries such as Togo and even Côte d’Ivoire.
Much to the dismay of many people who thought that she was wasting her life by fully going into fashion sales and design, Nanawax has been doing great.
Most people could not understand why she wasn’t taking her scholarship seriously and instead focusing her energies on marketing Nanawax.
Her passion for Nanawax has seen Maureen get a lot of recognition and awards. She is a testimony to the power of online marketing platforms in building businesses.
I mean, wasn’t she the one surviving from these sales and not from the internship program?
Nanawax is creating more job opportunities and building different connections not only in Africa but globally. She gets customers from all over the world; all the way from New York to the South of Africa.
Yes, the sales were not that much in America when she was starting but right now people have diversified and people are appreciating the African prints in more ways. I mean did you not see Naomi Campbell posting in an African print?
Nanawax currently has thirty employees and is looking forward to expanding and employing more.
One of the biggest challenges is finding great designers in the African market. Being recognized as one of the biggest African clothing brands to Maureen was a dream come true.
She still couldn’t believe that even with no knowledge from fashion schools she was able to create some of the most fashionable designs.
Maureen is looking towards having a physical presence in more countries as online sales continue to pick up.
Yes, the last ten years have led to the growth of a very big business that is creating so much for her as a person and also for her community.
