 I am joined by Ashok Sani and he goes by Master Taylor, he is good in this whatever he does, he is good at whatever he does and as usual they say that style is more of it's more of elegance, it's what speaks out before you actually even speak when you enter in any room. Thank you very much. Wow, I am so very happy to have this conversation with you. Okay, my name is Ashok Sani, I'm the Master Taylor and Creative Director at Ashok Sani Sitorial. We do high end bespoke and measure suits for both ladies and gentlemen. Alright, so where is this passion stuff like you being a designer? Okay, I sat a while back when I was still in campus, what I used to do, I used to go to Kikomba, get a few pieces, I had them adjusted and then I wear them. So the more you wear unique pieces, the more you get comments and you get friends, actually friends used to steal my clothes, some used to go with them, some used to buy them. So at the end of the day when you come, the more you learn, when you meet sailors, you come and learn that there's something called fabrics, somewhere you can buy fabrics instead of buying a mtumba outfit and then start resizing it and either way then get the product that you want. So you get fabrics, make something out of that, then that's how it started because I like to wear suits but you could not find a suit. A suit was very expensive, actually Nairobi is still very expensive to get a high end quality suit and back in those days you can only buy a suit from Sahendi or Little Red. Little Red is very very expensive, you could not even walk in that street. So you go to Sahendi, Sahendi is also you get, as a creative you get limited colors options, you get black, navy, blue, the office because at the end of the day they used to bring in things that could sell, not things that are fashionable. Yeah, they are the mindset of the setup. So as a creative you were limited by what you could find in the market. So at the end of the day you end up doing finding ways to that you can bring out your creativity into the world. All right, okay it's one thing to love to dress well and you know as you've spoken it includes a lot when it comes to fabrics and everything else. So what particular time did you actually start designing your own clothes? First time actually I went to a designer and I wanted to make a piece so I gave this designer what I wanted to make and I gave them the amount of money they requested so at the end of the day I never got the outfit. So instead of back and forth and fighting I told him this is what we could do. You can't do the business, I can do the business. All you need to do is you have a brand, you already have a brand in the market. Let me do the legwork. So that's how it started. So I started working for someone before I started doing my own brand. All right, all right all right. So for how long have you been in the market doing this? It's almost 80 years now if I can remember. That's a long time. So take us through what is your educational background. Tell us more about you, what did you study in school and if one desires to be a designer what sort of background should they have? For me actually I never went to fashion school. I've never been to fashion school. What I did in campus was BBIT, my Bachelor's in Business Information Technology. When it comes to tailoring and stitching I landed as an apprenticeship. When I'm after classes, when I didn't have classes I used to go somewhere learn it as an apprenticeship. So if you want to perfect your craft no matter how many years you go to school you can never something like tailoring where your skill is what sells you. You need to learn it and practice it as much as possible. So whichever background you come from as long as you're passionate about something even if it's tailoring, designing, it's marketing, whatever you want to do as long as you're passionate in it and you have time to learn and you have the patience to learn you can perfect it and it takes a long time. It doesn't take two to three years. It takes a long time to perfect your craft. Even me while I'm here right now I haven't perfected my craft. I'm still learning day by day. You learn new things day by day. You interact with people, you client, you learn different things as you go on. So as you say that it takes time and I believe patience is about you right here. So who is your first plant? How did you get through the market? Because I believe this is a space fashion industry, the space that has been there for centuries in Kenya. We have a lot of fashion designer. So for you how did you break into the market? The first clients I had actually were just friends and family. That's the first people you test your product on and then when as it grows because at that time it was very very difficult. The fashion industry at that time was just a name, didn't have a fashion industry. Fabrics that were being brought by the suppliers were just normal fabrics. Most fabrics you could find are ladies fabrics. So if you want to do men's you are limited by the quality of fabrics that are available. So the first time I broke into the market was I got a gig doing this beauty patterns. So I used to do choreography for models. So the first gig I got was doing outfits, choreography and outfits for models. So that's where I started doing fashion. But what I came to understand in Kenya, Kenyans celebrate designers but they don't appreciate designers. So no matter how many fashion shows you do you can have a you can have a name but you can have a name but the brand doesn't sell. That's the difference. Why is the disconnecting that? The thing is the market is very very small in Kenya. The people who have purchasing power don't look at fashion designers. They'll just look for garments they can wear. People who look for fashion designers don't have the purchasing power. That's the problem. Secondly, the cost of production in Kenya is very high. That's why you see Louis Gucci, the big designers, they don't produce in their own country, they produce in China for mass production because the cost of production is lower. But then when they bring these things back to Italy or whichever distribution channels they have all over the world, the tariffs are very low. So they're encouraging them to sell in retail. In Kenya, first thing, if I want to sell in retail, labor is very costly. So I need to have a very big setup. Secondly, I need to have a distribution channel. We don't have Bloomingtales here, we don't have Saks Fifth Avenue. So if I produce these products myself, I have to sell them myself. Plus you also import fabrics? Yes. For high and bespoke, you have to import fabrics. For me to measure, we can use fabrics that are available here depending on... We have different packages and different prices for different suits and other products. So if I want to do a whole setup and get to that high level in Africa, it's a bit difficult and it's a bit hard because the cost is very high. So for me to get to that setup and then also we import fabrics like you said, we import machines. So if I'm putting all of these things and the tariff is high, how much do I need to have that whole setup at the beginning? Then if I'm selling this product myself, I need to... Like Vivo. Vivo needs to open all of these shops so that it can sell their own product. No one can store their own products. See, that's a problem. So getting to that level where you can sell in retail is something you're trying to work on, you're trying to build, but it will take a bit of time. So there's a disconnect because people who are buying... Like if I'm selling a high end suit, the only person who can buy a high end suit is someone who's ironing a certain amount of money. And appreciates. And appreciate quality. So that's the problem. So we need to... First thing we need to do marketing, a lot of marketing to get people to understand. Then at the end of the day we need to get products that can cover all ranges. So depending on what purchasing power this person has, they can have a... Because Kenyans don't look at fashion. Actually people who appreciate fashion in Kenya ladies compare to men. Men usually like something functional and something durable. When a man comes in and asks you, how long will this fabric last? They're not looking at how good it looks or how fancy it looks. How long will it last? You see, if I'm spending money on this, how long will it last? I don't want to buy this today and then buy something else tomorrow. So they're looking about... I think it's looking for value for your money. Yes, it's looking for value for your money. But at the end of the day if I give you value for that, you think it's too expensive. Because if I tell you, if you want a good quality suit, it will cost you between $600 to $2000, which is too expensive. But then if I'm looking at the cost of just bringing the fabrics into the country, the cost is very high. Okay, now I understand. I totally understand. When it comes to mass production as we've just put it, mass production and the distribution channel, how can we bridge that? How can the government come in that situation? In that situation now, it all comes down to having a factory here where we can produce our own fabric. Because if we can produce our own fabric, I can order fabrics in mass. If I order fabrics in mass, I can come up with a line. Then I can sell this line. Because in terms of distribution channels, I think I can open my own shops all over Kenya. Then I can say I'm selling this kind of a product. So if the cost of production is lower, anyone can afford to buy this kind of product. So I can have products for the youngest to the oldest. So if the tariffs and everything else can come down, then we have a factory here because cotton is here. It's being exported. Then sold to us back as fabric. So you see. So in business, if you're at the top of the value chain, then you're making money. For fabrics, whoever is producing cotton, whoever is producing wool skin, whoever is producing leather, whoever has that in the farm, that's the biggest value chain. Then when you're going down, because we are at the bottom of the value chain, because we are the end consumer, where we buy fabrics and then make garments and sell. If I was getting cotton from here, then it would be easier for me because I'll just be getting here. But now I'm getting it from Italy. I'm getting it from London. If I'm importing that fabric because if you order a suit, it's maybe roughly three meters or four meters. If I'm wanting four meters from London through DHL, and then I come, I'm paying for the fabric, I'm paying DHL, then I'm paying for customs. Before it gets here, you already spend half of what you're selling the suit for. All right. So a couple of your designs are running on screen right now. A couple of your designs and your projects that you've done. So take us through your niche in the market. Who are the guys that you're targeting? As per now, as a business model, we're working on it now. We want to target everyone, but as per now that people are targeting at a working class, people who wear suits every day. That person who works up in the morning has to wear a suit to work. A lady or a gentleman, depending on whichever preference they have or job description or environment, that's our target market. We are looking for that gentleman who needs to wear suits every day and appreciates good quality tailor made or base box suits. Okay. So take us through if I was to visit Eshoxani Satorial. It was to visit you guys on location. Take us through if I want a suit briefly. What are the steps that you will take me through? Okay. The first step is your consultation. That's why I get to know you as a person. I get to know what you do, what you like, the kind of fittings that you like, the kind of colors that you usually wear. If you are in a comfort zone, what kind of a color will take you out of the comfort zone? Because if I take you out of your comfort zone, I'll be able to build from there as your personality. So if I understand your personality and what you do and your character and your environment that you're in every day, it will be able for me to understand what kind of fabrics you can wear, what kind of an outfit you can wear and then you can also come up with new things that you can wear on your day-to-day basis. All right. All right. So I mentioned for us the most, I don't want to say affordable because I know there's an argument behind that. But the most affordable suit and also the most expensive suit. Okay. The most affordable, let me say affordable. We have different packages. We have packages. Yes. Take us through your packages. Okay. We have our minimum package is 15,000 per suit. That's locally available fabric. It's usually from China. And then we have the most expensive. It's from 350,000 to 700,000. That's high in bespoke fabric and a bespoke suit. We have two different types of suits. We have bespoke and made-to-measure. Made-to-measure is your standard suit. You go to a tailor, they take your measurements and then you do a fitting and then it's done. Bespoke is more hand stitched. Literally hand. Yes. So 70% of bespoke is done by hand. Okay. 30% is done by machine. How long does that take? It depends on how long it takes to get the fabric here. So it can take 4 to 6 weeks. And then we do 3 fittings. So 70% is done by hand. Then as we do the different parts, we have the back part, front part, the sleeves, the collar. We bring all of these parts together with a machine. Then you do the fitting. For when you do the first fitting, it's just a frame of the suit. You just put it on you. Then you take it apart. Then you do it again. You do the second fitting. Then you take it apart. Yeah, it's a long process. And then that's where you get value for your money because if I'm selling that to you at a thousand dollars, you get value for your money. And then what people don't know why bespoke is essential is that most of when I look at you, I won't see right now that maybe this arm is longer than this one. This sleeve is longer than this one. This leg is longer than this one. Usually not balanced. Oh, yeah, what throws it like that? Yeah, you have different, like half an inch, quarter inch, or one inch difference in terms of your body structure. So bespoke caters for that. For me to measure, we go with the shortest. For bespoke, we balance. So it's more about details and quality. All right, that makes lots of sense. All right, so how do you guys position yourself in the market and also to increase sales, marketing strategy? We have two types of marketing strategies for certain packages, for the one from 15,000 to 30,000, we do horizontal marketing. For the expensive one, we do vertical marketing, which is targeted. What is horizontal marketing? Horizontal marketing is where you do mass marketing. Like you use influencers, you use personalities like you. You use musicians to target a certain kind of market. Then for vertical marketing, we target the person directly. Like if this is a personality, maybe it's a deputy president. You target him directly, you get a way to reach to him and then you get a consultation with him where you can show him different fabrics. Because these are guys who have very expensive shoes. People who are Breone, Breone is one of the most expensive brands in the world where they dress presidents like our president. So to get to these people, they won't look at a celebrity wearing your suit and say, I like her suit, no. They look at quality and fabric and what they can wear, which is functional. So that's why you see them wearing almost the same colors every day. You never see the difference, but the quality of the fabric is different. You see Donald Trump wearing a suit which is worth 2.5 million but you can't see why is it worth 2.5 million. But when you get close to that fabric and you see the texture and the tellering, you see the difference. And it's also long lasting. Very long lasting because the generational bespoke is generational where you see a father passing down a jacket to a son. Yeah, so that's bespoke. Sentimental value there. Okay, so for someone who is watching this conversation and they want to get into the design space, fashion design. But again, they're looking at their bank statement, yo, there's no money, capital zero. So how can they go about that? When it comes to designing, don't start a business because you have an idea, land. You see Tom Ford was a CEO of Gucci for almost, I think, 15 years before he started Tom Ford. So Sam Tukal Lagerfield, he was the CEO of different Coco Chanel, different brands before he became Carl Lagerfield. So you have to learn before you get into a brand and you want to build your brand. The problem with Kenyans and human beings at the end of the day is patience. People want to make money very fast. If I wanted to make money very fast, I would have done it 3, 4 years ago. The reason I've taken time to learn the process is because if you take your time to build a foundation, it lasts longer. So that next time if it's my son or whoever comes in next can get a foundation where they can build from. And that's why our industry, as a fashion industry, fails because people who are before us didn't build a foundation. They wanted to make themselves money very fast. That's why you see when you go to a fashion so 70% will be Kitenge, Ankara. Because everyone is comfortable making Ankara because Ankara sells very fast. This is Africa. Is he saying now you're promoting our own? It's promoting our own but at the end of the day innovation is failing. Oh yeah. Because if I don't, I can't wear Ankara to work every day. Makes sense. I need to wear, if I'm not wearing a suit I need to wear a very nice shirt and I need to wear a very nice trouser. Why can I get that? True. Why don't we have a Kenyan who's doing shoes and selling leather shoes? Why? Why do we have to import everything from? Why are we wearing fake Gucci, fake Louis? And you can wear original Ashok Sani or whoever designer who is there because that's what I tell people celebrate designers but they don't sell the brand. That's the difference. Got it. Yeah. Got it. So let's look at this aspect. Clearly, this space you're into it's lucrative compared to the digits that you've mentioned and how you guys have been following have you been in operation seven, eight years? Eight years, yeah. Eight years. So how do you ensure that you're authentic into this space? That's what I said. You need to learn and build the foundation because when you build the foundation then everything falls into place. If you're trying to make money very fast you'll do something that someone else is doing. That's why most of the time you see your designer is doing when you go to Instagram or Pinterest you see what he's posting is the same as the things on Pinterest. They just they even sometimes they do the design exactly the way it is when it comes to West Africa and where they just do it exactly the way it is and just post it. So being authentic is just being you. Presenting what you feel is yours whether it's good or bad. If it's good you'll get feedback. You'll learn from it. If it's bad you'll know it's bad then you'll do better. You won't give up. But in terms of staying for longer being authentic it's just being who you are presenting and selling what you believe is who you are because at the end of the day that's why you see fashion brands having the founder's name. You have Gucci, Jojo Amani Bolmain. The founders are selling an imprint of themselves so if you accept what I'm selling then it'll be it's authentic and if it's authentic people will accept it and it lasts longer. Great. I'm looking back a couple of achievements that you're looking back will be like I'm proud I got into this. You want me to mention some of the every day that you you open that door to that business and it's still functional and you have a set of employees who are believing and still working there no matter how good or bad things are that is an achievement for me every day I'll be able to open that door and the business is still running because we as a business we have not even achieved 50% of what you're supposed to achieve but you're still there and you're still running and you're still you have people who believe because my staff are people who believe in what I want to achieve and they believe in the vision of where we are going so we can be making less money now but in their mind they believe we can make money more as we go forward All right and how do you build that up with your employees and just keep the vision going? You know you meet different people you hire different people but at the end of the day when you hire 10 people you'll find two people who are believing what you're saying who are believing what you're doing every day who are believing who believe that the road is very long journey is very long and at the end of the day when you get those two people you send the other away you get another 10 you get two people from there so you build slowly that's how it's taken a bit of time we're not even there yet but you're heading to a certain direction where we believe is the right direction Fantastic So how do you guys keep afloat during this time of COVID-19 especially during that way this that way Yeah it's very very difficult but at the end of the day there's good will and then when you come to me you give me your money tell me Ashok, do me make me this comment I make you this comment we do adjustments you're very happy you're very satisfied that's good will and it always comes back just like kama it always comes back so at the end of the day whenever it's hard you channel that good will because you have clients who are permanent clients we have clients who make orders every single month so these are clients who keep you afloat so whenever it's bad or it's hard especially last year I had clients who were calling me and telling me you guys are you still open and telling them yeah that we don't want you to close what can we do can I order something I had clients ordering clothes they don't even need because they believe that if you close they won't have someone later to take you over then then it's hard so it's channeling the good will that you have at the end of the day yeah I also feel like it's good customer relation and also satisfaction good quality at the end of it all because what you've been surviving on is customer loyalty because at the end of the day and referrals because if I make you something good you'll send someone else we haven't done much that's why you don't I am sure you never had of Ashok Sani before today or yesterday I'm sure because we've not done mass marketing as we supposed to because you're trying to improve on the quality of the product before you put it into the market then we go to retailing so that when when you hear Ashok Sani you know that's Ashok Sani who makes this kind of a garment I can buy this one from if you need something you just click Ashok Sani so we are getting into that level all right all right so a couple of setbacks that you've experienced for this 80 years that you've been into business I like the first time the first client I had was wedding because I didn't understand the quality of fabrics I made a certain fabric for a certain client they chose the fabric but at the end of the day because you were still learning you get the product they come out very well you get the client who sends back the product you have to pay back the full amount you have a product you can't even use and then learning the slow process of learning fabrics getting good fabrics COVID COVID came COVID is a setback but it's a learning process at the end of the day we can never sit around and cry that these are setbacks you learn from them that's how you grow that's true three financial lessons that you've learnt along the way as you wind up put money back into the business as much as you can don't spend more than the business makes and always always always have money in the bank because you never know what comes next all right why good advice there so master tailor how can people find your clothes over social media handles yes and if you want this so how can we reach out to you okay we're everywhere on social media Ashok Sanisa Torial Instagram Facebook Twitter everywhere Ashok Sanisa Torial our shops we have one in Moktadada our workshop Moktadada street a building called Garden Chambers just next to Jivanji we have Kilimani Denysprit Crest Park Apartments all right that is Ashok Sani thank you very much for creating time to have this conversation as when it comes to fashion redefined those of fashion industry in general thank you very much thank you very much so guys that is the master tailor known as Ashok Sani so make sure you follow them across all the social media handles and keep the conversation going remember at Y254 channel so you can find us across all our social media handles at michelleashira is where you can find me across all my social we'll be right back