Once Upon a Photoshoot Part II: Photoshoot Day

On May 19th, 2016, I woke up with a positive spirit and prayed that nothing would go wrong and also that no surprises would pop up from angles out of my control. Once my son was off to school, I said goodbye to my 18 month old baby and drove to Big H studios. My team was already there waiting and so were the makeup artists. We started working immediately while Luke and Henry both started setting up their stations. Before we began with the make up, I gave each participant a copy of their legal agreements and explained to them its legal content and agreement between both parties. Many of the participants had questions, as expected and I happily answered them all. Thereafter, we kicked off the day’s activities in full throttle.

My team steamed and set up all the garments according to the order of who was having their makeup done first. I arranged the jewelry, shoes et al and other accessories, while also shuttling between floors to answer questions from both Luke and Henry. As soon as the first participant got her makeup done, we dressed her up and continued in that sequence. I was a little bit tense when one of the participants called early in the morning and said she had a court appearance but that she would be there within 2 hours, but she kept to her word and was there.

The sequence of events for the photoshoot was quite simple; come into the studio, get legal agreement, read through, ask questions and sign them. Hand over our copy and tuck yours away. Proceed to the makeup station or wait as the next in line, while our editor interviewed you about your business and our brand. Once makeup was done, you get changed with help from our team and styled at once. Then you proceed to the photo shoot area and get your photo taken. Once that was done, you proceeded to the glam station and got your glam shot. Once you were done with this routine, you got changed and styled into your 2nd garment for the next shoot and glam shoot at well. In between, there was time to chat and network with other entrepreneurs, eat from the caterer’s tasty snacks and discuss Baba Buhari’s economy…..lol…..that topic seems to be so much more unifying for entrepreneurs, amongst other things.

Meanwhile within the hours since we started working that morning, my team members were making calls to secure a location for the following day’s shoot. They sourced five different locations which all failed, one after the other, mostly due to late permit requirements. Lesson learnt….lol

Once the shoot was wrapped up, the team packed up all the participants’ garments and individually gave it to them……yes they got to keep all the garments that they were featured in…….they were all so excited. We said our good byes, thank you and Henry and I began the photo selection process. Amazing, amazing concept and photography.

While we were reviewing the amazing photos, I got a call from participant who was supposed to participate in the next day’s shoot. She had just come in from Jos for her fittings. We met at Big H studios and then proceeded to my office where Vintage Colette team members were on standby for fittings. Once we got to the office, we had minimal fittings. I picked up the rest of the garments for the 20th’s editorial shoot, which had a completely different set of participants, and headed home.

I was home by 8pm to do homework with my son, while tolerating tantrums from an 18 month old…..my dear angry bird….lol……I finally slept off at 11:30pm and was eager to see what the next day offered.

The next day, May 20th, 2016 was equally the same as the 19th in terms of routine for the participants. The only difference was that the makeup was more intense and we had fewer participants. As I had mentioned earlier, we still didn’t have a location for the shoot, but while Mr. Logistics, a.k.a Hubby, was running around trying to sort that out, I kept calm and we proceeded with make up et al. Luke and Henry were also making their own individual arrangements. After about 2 hours and no location had been secured, I still kept calm since I knew that having a temper could not boil yam or steam vegetables….lol…We finally came up with a better concept of merging 2 different canvases and having a vanity fair kind of photoshoot at Big H studios, and what a treat it was. I remembered when some of my team members got worried when I stepped on the ladder, a prop used for the shoot. I assured them that I was safe and wished it was a tree or a fence….some childhood memories you wish to relive…..growing up is really a trick.

Once we were done and we had started packing up for the participants, I realized something that was true about all the women featured for both days. They were all hardworking women with NO ROOM for drama. They were women who would lift other women……..Souls that needed a pat in the back saying, ‘You’ll be fine, your hard work will pay off soon’……..Women who wanted to express their personalities……..Women who wanted to be celebrated and appreciated……They are individually the perfect VINTAGE COLETTE WOMAN.

I got home and reluctantly took off my make up at 10:30pm and looked forward to a long awaited weekend.

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Another Abuja Fusion Event

The Fusion lifestyle event is a quarterly event held at the BMO arena of Abuja, Nigeria. It showcases all kinds of vendors from food vendors to lifestyle and entertainment vendors, and it also allows these vendors to market their various unique products to a wide range of customers all in the same day. Vintage Colette regularly in this event because it allows us to network with other entrepreneurs, engage with a wider customer base and also carry out more research on who our customers are and what they really want and need from our services.

For this quarter, preparations started a week before the May 29th Fusion event. We started by choosing certain fabrics that we were going to use to produce all of the apparel to be sold on that day. After the fabrics were chosen, we checked our customer records from the last Fusion event and put into consideration all requests and product suggestions from those we interacted with at the last event. Then we proceeded to design the garments based on the current weather conditions so that we wouldn’t end up producing anything that would not be suitable for the hot and humid Abuja weather.

At such large events and expos, we often find that our smaller sizes are never in demand, so with that in consideration, we started producing the sizes that we were going to sell at Fusion.

We decided earlier to produce 110 garments as we did during the last Fusion event in March. During that particular March event, we sold out of almost all of our products. For the May Fusion event, we ended up producing 117 garments in a span of 6 working days by working round the clock….yes we do have a highly organized and effective team in place to do that. While some were handling production, others were handling quality control. Then our remaining staff would pack up the clothing and taking full stock of all the exact items we were taking to the event.

Just when I thought we were all sorted out, I realized that our store mannequin wouldn’t work for the majority of items we wanted to display at our stand due to a small malfunction with controlling its balance So we had to borrow from a good designer friend of mine who wasn’t going to be at the event. Two hours to the closing time we realized that her staff had made an error by giving us the wrong set of mannequin hands and we had to quickly dash to her office to make a last minute swap.

We then went over our entire checklist while the last batch of production was going on for the last set of garments to be packed, which were about seven in number. Electric steamer…check, Extension wire….check, Mannequin…check, receipts…..check, Customer information booklet…check, dressmakers pins…check, measuring tapes…check, petty cash box….check, writing materials…check, clothing rack…check, petty cash…check, clothing tags and tagging gun….check, hangers….check, jewelry and accessories for styling the mannequin….check, Carrier bags…check, point of sales portable machine…check, office mobile phone…check, and finally the last batch of awaiting apparel, garments111-117…..check.

We closed our doors at 8:30pm and were scheduled to be at the venue the next morning by 10am.


The next morning, we all convened at the venue and set up our stand earlier than most vendors. We were all excited as we met other new and old vendors and talked about work and the economy. After all was set and done, I decided to head home and wear my fabulous outfit for the event. Customers are very visual and want to relate with the product well, so wearing a item on the mannequin wasn’t enough. My team all had to wear our brand to market the products better. And guess what, the first customer was there within a few minutes after setting up our stand. I got back from my house just in time to meet up with her and discuss her review of our products and she was quite pleased that I was very interested in her validation.

Fast forward to an hour or two later, the hall was buzzing with people but only a 50% of its usual capacity. A few of our old customers came by and said hello to us and other vendors as well. Sadly, some of them left without buying anything this time around. When I finally asked one of them, she said what almost all the vendors experienced on that day, “there is no money anywhere, the economy is bad, therefore I cannot afford to spend, so I just came out to socialize.”

I left my post with my team in charge and went on research only to realize that the rest of the vendors were experiencing the same thing too. Sales were quite below average that day, but we knew that it won't be a permanent situation and we still needed to forge forward.

So, I lightened up and entertained a few friends of mine, family with food and drinks and enjoyed the weather. It began to rain around 5:00pm but we stayed and enjoyed the event, packed up at 7:30pm and said good-bye to the organizers.


As we opened our doors for business two days later at our office, we discussed on ways to stay afloat during and after the economic crunch facing us today in Nigeria.

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