“My Sleepless Nights Have Paid Off” – Mariama Ibrahim

Early September this year marked the graduation of pretty faces who have acquired skills from the brilliant and ever beautiful president of Vogue Style School of Fashion, Joyce Ababio. Different displays were made and so did all catch our attention as we had turns with the graduating students. Emotions attached to whatever one does give the result in a more fantastic aroma. Few weeks later, we did have a chat with Miss Mariama Ibrahim, a young lady from Salaga who was born and bred in Accra.

Within the couple of minutes we had with her, she did take her time to tell us what her design means to her and how far she is willing to go with her forth coming fashion show somewhere in Ghana. What she curled out of the million ideas that ran through her mind before the presentation few weeks earlier as what was to be her final work before saying goodbye to her instructor and mentor was the combination of African print and beading on it.

What led her into this and what insight she pictures whenever designing comes up? ‘The passion; there cannot be fashion without passion. Whenever I am approached to design for anyone, I try as much as possible to create history with my designs most especially using African prints. I understand the traditions and cultures of our people and so I first of all look at the interpretation of what I was to design and as well try to make all my clienteles look sexy and fly.’

On how best she can describe her work we saw, she had this to say with a smile, ‘cool and sassy. From the complexity of the sewing, the colour choice and the type of thread to be used determined the value of the garment. So you see that a lot of time got into it.’

Her success story is not all about sewing but it remains a dear one especially in the early days of her involvement of her passion and mastering the art with all the pains of even taking a whole day to stitch a straight line, novice to the designing world, lashes and castigation from friends who down-graded her ability to produce meaning.

For Mariama who has once fallen out of the ‘classroom walls’ but still upbeats her passion recounts telling a friend, ‘a degree is useless without know-how’, today she has perfected her skills and the passion that drives inside of her is seeing her to the top. Fashion designing is not for drop outs as gone are the days parents always choose the art as a second fiddle for their wards.

Bright designs don’t just come by without the push from loved ones; Mariama’s most gratitude goes to her father, Alhaji Issifu Braimah who has been a rock behind her entire schooling days at Vogue Style School of Fashion. With her ambition of setting out one of Ghana’s biggest clothing line cum consultancy firm paramount, she is currently with the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, where she is having her National Service.

Being on the verge of taking her world to another level through the celebration of African culture with the combination African prints to illustrate the dynamic nature of African fashion, we did ask her finally pass an advice to her fellow peers, youth alike who are out there, she said, ‘there are schools and universities out there offering courses in fashion designing, so don’t be scared of criticism, follow your dreams which sometimes may not be easy at first but it is sure attainable.’

Her sleepless nights and difficulties she went through have paid off with her fashion show bid to come off in about six month’s time.