We recently connected with Stanley Agwere Emeryls and have shared our conversation below.

Stanley , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Essien just as the name implies, it’s bold, subtle, unique, swift, African and resonate more with African American and Africans especially the people from Akwa Ibom in Nigeria West Africa.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

1. ESSIEN is the most renowned influential Afro luxury brand emerging from Lagos Nigeria, a genuine global reference for Afro luxury fashion and accessories who’s priorities in the fashion business are speed, punctuality, action, experience, integrity, transparency and credibility.

2. The ESSIEN look and feel for us is that our genuine leather jackets has a luxurious look with a soft supple feel and a distinctive Afro scent.

3. We provide top notch high-end luxury pieces from ready-to-wear, carpet dresses, trads and underwears; in the future we would be providing accessories like handbags, wallets, shoes, caps, bracelets, chains and so on.

4. Our aesthetics are curated from the infusion of high quality fabric inspos like aso-oke, adire, velvet, campala, lace, isiaku, leather, ankara, silk, crep, denim etc.

5. We hope to become the leader in Afro luxury market at a worldwide level within the next few years; thereby providing our esteem clients with sustainable pieces.

6. Our marketing strategy is to create a sense of exclusivity around our products to appeal to high-end consumers who value Afro luxury and quality through the use of high-end materials, attention to details, and signature design elements.

7. ESSIEN is for anyone who likes Afro luxury brands including children.

8. I’ve been greatly inspired by the dynamics in our culture, historical reference and experience in my personal upbringing which has influenced the curation of a unique and recognizable Afro luxury brand identity.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Got my initial capital from the sister company being Nkmodels Mgmt, it’s been a recycling process of funding for me as all the proceeds from the modeling agency was directly tilted to funding the clothing brand till date.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Having to put on hold my personal life, music career amongst other things to pursue this course is resilient to me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/essienbrand?igsh=MXF0c3pzMG1wdjcyZA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561250008655&mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@essienbrand
• Other: WhatsApp +234-8098923003