Hello WORriors! Today is #WomanCrushWednesday and our Woman Crush is Deola Sagoe.

Deola Sagoe is a fashion designer and founder of Deola, an African haute couture fashion. She is from Ondo State in Nigeria. She has a Masters in Finance and Management from University of Miami and University of Lagos. Deola has been at the cutting edge of high fashion since 1989 and became the first black woman to present a collection at AltaRoma, Rome’s celebrated fashion week, back in 2004. Her globally appealing style has earned her an enviable clientèle that ranges from Africa’s first ladies, to society girls like Lydia Hearst, top model Alek Wek, and famous personalities such as Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith. She frequently exhibits her couture collection at Cape Town Fashion Week.

In 2000, she was nominated by the influential US Vogue Editor, Andre Leon Tally, for the M/NET Anglo Gold African Designs Award and she won. She was selected as one of four designers from Africa to show their work at New York Fashion Week in 2000.  What got her noticed was the fact that she was the only designer to showcase designs using authentic African fabrics from antiquity, but incorporated into contemporary designs.  This was the launchpad for her haute couture business to gain global recognition.  Her fashion collections have since been modelled around the world at some of the biggest and most prestigious events.

Deola Sagoe has a glamorous flagship store and headquarters on Victoria Island, Nigeria which was completed in 2008 and which houses the brand’s offices, production facilities and showrooms.  Around 20 people are employed there, working on unique runway collections and bespoke haute couture pieces for individual clients.

She is Nigeria’s representative to the United Nations World Food Program ‘Catwalk the World: Fashion for Food’ with the goal of raising money towards halving the number of hungry people in the world, particularly children, by 2015. In 2014, she made a cameo appearance in Kunle Afolayan’s film October 1as Funmilayo Ransome Kuti. The 51 years old mother of three is fondly referred to as ‘Ambassador of ‘Blacks Don’t Crack’

 

Women Of Rubies celebrates you, Deola Sagoe!

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