Digital 52 9️⃣ - Co-sewing & educational space supporting Nigerian designers in their journey to success: the story of 360 Creative Hub.
Today’s story will take you on a journey around fashion and providing a physical space adapted to fashion professionals and designers. Ready to discover a co-sewing space from Nigeria?
[Changing Careers, Education, Value Creation]
Read the story of 360 Creative Hub on page 290 of "Around The World in 250 Coworking Spaces".
If you read previous editions of Digital52s, you’ll know now that coworking can take many shapes, and sizes, and serve a diverse range of communities. Spaces innovated with business models, with the physical space they possess as well as, for some, the online space they develop alongside it. Today’s story is a mix of everything we just described. While the inspiration comes from coworking, their founder describes it as a co-sewing space. And while her spaces are rather small, the community she gathers around them, in-person and online, is powerful and eager to raise awareness about the many hyper-talented fashion designers in Nigeria.
Let’s make our way to Lagos, to discover 360 Creative Hub.
➡️ A little refresher
Who’s behind the featured space?
Meet Blessing Achu.
Blessing started 360 Creative Hub after realizing how much the sharing economy as a concept was still untapped in Nigeria.
“I noticed that while we have many coworking spaces catered to the IT crowds, not many were centered around the Creative Industry. Which is a sort of problem because when you look at the index of innovation, creativity itself is a major factor.”
➡️ Key Figures
- Opening year: 2016
- Size: 15 sqm (150 sqft)
- Number of spaces: 2
➡️ A little tour around 360 Creative Hub
➡️ Behind-the-scenes
Things you didn't read in aw250cs
“I wanted a name that immediately communicates my dream for the brand; to be a place that provides total support for the growth of young creative businesses.”
"You will make money, but money might take some time. The immediate gain will be to see people succeed at what they do."
Blessing Achu, Founder
➡️ 360 Creative Hub, Today.
During my chat with Blessing Achu, the Founder of 360 Creative Hub, I felt a lot of admiration for her dedication and passion for supporting young, local creatives in achieving their big dreams. We spent quite some time discussing the impact of COVID-19, which, as you’ll soon learn, was not minimal for her space, her community, and her region. Despite the challenges, 360 Creative Hub has lived what feels like a rebirth. One supported by the local community, and newcomers that Blessing gathered during the pandemic, thanks to the magic of the World Wide Web.
💫 Recovering, Educating, Growing, Impacting.
These were two very strong messages Blessing emphasized during our chat together. Post-COVID-19 has not meant getting back to what was there before. Instead, it has meant understanding the path to recovery, adapting the model in some ways, and connecting with a new community of further-away professionals who can support her members in their journey to fashion greatness.
Something Blessing and her team have spent a lot of time on over the last year. What opportunities lie in the digital world for her community? How can 360 Creative Hub gain more recognition and support more members in their Fashion and Creative careers?
💬 How are things with you at 360 Creative Hub?
COVID played a number on us and affected our business. We struggled throughout last year. But this year, things have picked up. Designers have come back to make clothes. People are trying to see what they can do with their fashion. Designers are coming back to being designers, which makes us hopeful. COVID came into Nigeria in February 2020, and we quickly got into restrictions.
For us, the question became “Who makes clothes during COVID?” but also “Who is looking for Nigerian designers?”
Everybody was so scared of what was going to happen. We started experiencing growth around November 2020. People started coming out. But apart from that, throughout last year, from June to October, it wasn't easy, but when the economy moved, we moved on. Yes, we did.
💬 Did you get some support from the government?
The Nigerian government is a funny one. I wish I was in Europe or anywhere. It would have been a different scenario. But after applying and trying to get support, we didn't get any feedback. Nothing.
💬 So how have you adapted throughout the pandemic? Have you changed the space in any way?
Yeah, throughout the pandemic, we adapted and offered hand sanitizers. We were also fumigating the environment at the end of each day, to make sure our members could feel safe to come back the next day. I should also say that our space attracts young people, and I noticed they didn’t have any fear of COVID.
💬 Have you also adapted anything online during the COVID pandemic? And if yes, what did you do then?
We had to keep our community engaged. So, we started having conversations online. We used Zoom to have workshops on business, digital skills, branding, fashion illustration, blockchain, Italian fashion, how to use Facebook for fashion, WooCommerce, and Shopify. An interesting one was also “how you can use TikTok for your fashion pieces.”
💬 Interesting! Who was conducting that kind of workshop?
We brought in experts in their fields. We asked them if they’d be willing to share their knowledge on this topic because we knew it would be very valuable for our members. I talked to lots of people. I used LinkedIn to reach out to them. And I am glad I did because many said yes.
💬 Now, what is the focus for you? Where do you want to bring your space and your community?
We are looking at how we can build up to where we were. Some of our members that were coming before now travel to their local location and they are no longer coming back. We are looking at ways to adapt our membership, targeting different audiences that could also use the space.
Looking at how COVID has affected people, we are trying to see how we can support trained designers, and help them learn how to build cardboard glue back, or how to make clothing for locals. We want to show them the trends in fashion or get them to understand color themes, or how to speak their language, via branding. As a fashion designer, you need to understand how you speak to your audience so that when you are making your clothes; you don't just sell them to people in your local environment.
So I can share with you, and you can share with your friends. Then you are buying from and supporting a young designer.
Our goal is to build capacity development and use the community to scale our e-commerce and digital platform, track sales, build people's knowledge, and help them realize the full potential of our space.
💬 In our initial interview, you said something very interesting. You said, “We aim at creating a platform that makes creative business easy, breaking the barriers to entry in the creative sector and birthing internationally recognized brands”. Can you expand on this notion of breaking the barriers to entering the creative sector? Why is it hard in Nigeria to enter the creative sector?
I don't know about other governments, but here, fashion designers and creative people don't get loans or grants easily to start businesses. So we offer to help our members with their structure, to get a loan from the bank. We make them put their purpose together and develop their business plan.
I'm in touch with Impact Funds to get them to invest in us so that we can finance our designers.
💬 When you talk about having Nigerian designers internationally recognized, are you also looking at building partnerships with brands from beyond Nigeria?
Yes, absolutely! We want to grow our store and identify designers from the UK, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, and all the major cities so that you can see creativity from everywhere.
💬 Can you talk to me a bit more about the type of fashion that your community members are working on? Is it mainly women's clothing or apparel, or do you have children's or men's?
We have men's apparel, bags, shoes, and female apparel for now. We don't do children, but we are trying to see how we could because in Nigeria the import of Children’s clothes is close to about $2 billion. We want to contribute and start encouraging designers to make children's clothes.
➡️ Reflections on Building 360 Creative Hub
💬 You said that you started 360 Creative Hub in 2016, which means it’s been 6 years now. What would you say has been your biggest learning out of bringing to life and growing your space and your community?
My biggest learning is that we have young designers in Nigeria who have lots to give, but they don't have the platform and the resources to do that. We have a lot of very creative designers, but they don't know how to go about making their fashion successful.
We can help channel those creative people and guide them to build sustainable and scalable businesses so that they can grow and make money while creating more employment across the country.
By 2025, I’d love for our space to have contributed to the success of five great designers who will employ people and contribute to our economy.
💬 If someone was coming to you tomorrow and saying “Blessing, I'm thinking of opening a co-sewing space in another part of the world”, what would be your biggest advice?
You have to be passionate about helping designers. You need to be ready to give it your all and support them as much as possible. You will make money, but money might take some time. The immediate gain will be to see people succeed at what they do.
One should be able to be passionate to give without holding back.
💬 And if you could speak to other coworking or collaborative workspaces doing what you are doing, in other regions of the world, what would you like to ask them?
💬 And if you could speak to fashion designers in other regions of the world who would be interested in your space, what would you like to ask them also?
I would ask them if they would be willing to work with African designers to create collections. If yes, they should talk to me. I'll make that happen. I have tons of designers that are available to work with them.
I want to add one more thing. If impact investors are reading this and will work with people in our community to create more jobs and leverage our platform, please reach out!
Let’s discuss the story of 360 Creative Hub on Discord! Come join our extended community of readers by clicking on the link below.
On another note, we are meeting again online this month!
Join us on November 29th, to discuss wellness and well-being in coworking spaces. Come and meet spaces and companies that have been bringing more wellness and well-being to coworking for the last decade!
➡️ Click here to get your free ticket!