Ade Hassan found it difficult to find the right lingerie to match her skin tone and two years after discovering her calling Ade launched Nubian Skin . Since the launch,Nubian Skin has products in five stores in the UK, two in Portugal, 21 stores in the U.S., and can be sold through nine websites online. In the U.S., Nubian Skin can be found in various Nordstrom stores in New York, Detroit, and DC just to name a few.
“I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur and I’ve always wanted to be in fashion – although that’s not something that I’ve studied,” says Ade. “I was working in a very corporate environment before Nubian Skin and there was always frustrations of either not finding panty hose that’s my color or wearing shirts that were quite sheer, but not wanting to always wear a black camisole underneath. Or when you are in a business meeting and your strap is showing or you can tell that you have red bra under a white top; I didn’t want that, I wanted nude. When I went into a shop and asked for that, they didn’t have my color. I remember sitting at a desk and the idea just popped into my head, and I said ‘why don’t you just make it?’ So I sent a text to my friend and told her I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and that was the beginning of my journey.”
Although Nubian Skin has achieved a whole lot Ade says it was difficult to find manufacturers in the beginning. In her own words, “I think the biggest hurdle for me at the beginning was finding manufactures. I was super excited once I started – I sent out emails to different manufacturer companies, and I wanted to make samples, but nobody got back to me. When you are so excited about something but no one seems to be responding, that’s really hard, but luckily I figured out quickly that I needed some expert advice. I found a consultant and she said ‘you need to go trade shows, that’s where you will meet manufactures,’ so that’s what I did. From then, it went onwards and upwards.”
Great work Ade! Full post here
