Colours of distinction Dress designer hopes to take her Nigerian-inspired designs global By: Eva Wasney  Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020

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This article was published 17/08/2020 (1494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It all started when Ori Ochoga needed a dress.

She was heading to an event and wanted to stand out, but couldn’t find anyone in Winnipeg to make her a custom outfit in the colourful wax print fabrics ubiquitous in her home country of Nigeria.

“I just went to Walmart, I got a sewing machine and I just started learning off YouTube,” says Ochoga.

Seven years later, the 26-year-old has honed her skills with a professional sewing internship and has started her own business, Chogah Customs, creating original attire for weddings, parties and photoshoots. She specializes in women’s formal wear and her intricate designs have been a hit with those in Winnipeg’s African community.

“African weddings are very, very elaborate, everyone wants to outshine the next person. And in Nigeria, we don’t want to wear the same thing as someone else so we create customs — that way you know you’re going into that (event) not looking like the next person,” she says. “It’s something that I grew up with, so I knew that if I went into mass production, no one would really want to patronize me.”

Ochoga is one of the only designers in the city making contemporary West African-style dresses and many of her clients have shared similar challenges finding locally made outfits.

It’s not uncommon for someone attending a wedding or baby dedication in Winnipeg to place an order with a designer in Africa months ahead of the event — a process that can be fraught with disappointment.

“If they decide to send their measurements back home for someone to make, it might not fit them exactly and it might not turn out the way they wanted it to be,” Ochoga says.

She sources wax print fabric — a technique that uses colour-resistant wax and dye soaking to create bold patterns — online and during trips back to Nigeria. Her design inspiration comes from the way a pattern falls on a client’s body and the work of high-fashion Nigerian designers such as Deola Sagoe and the Ghanaian fashion label Pistis.

Depending on the complexity of the design, it takes Ochoga anywhere from a week to a month to complete an outfit and she can often be found in front of her sewing machine until the wee hours of the morning.

Ochoga, who moved to Winnipeg in 2012 to attend university and works full-time as a data analyst on top of dressmaking, works out of a home studio and her colourful fabric samples and hand-sewn pillows offer pops of colour against the bright white walls of her Osborne-area apartment. Right now, she’s sewing beaded designs onto an ivory dress destined to be worn at an engagement photoshoot. It’s painstaking work, but the reaction from clients makes it worthwhile.

“It’s very scary at first. When they’re coming out, my heart is beating,” she says. “When they put on the dress and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I love it,’ it makes me so happy.”

Her goal is to one day turn Chogah Customs into a full-time job with a local storefront and worldwide presence.

“I really want to make it bigger, have my own store and get more clients, because right now I’m just the one doing everything,” Ochoga says. “I want to make it… more of a global brand, so not just Winnipeg, but (so) people all around can reach out to me.”

Ochoga’s work can be found on Instagram at @chogah and through Etsy.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney

Eva Wasney
Arts Reporter

Eva Wasney is a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press.

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