By Christy Anyanwu
Sunglasses are a great way to express your personal style and add a touch of glamour to your outfit. At the recent Africa Fashion Week London (AFWL) in October, Aderiyike Makinde the creative director of Aderiyike showcased iconic sunglasses. She spoke with Saturday Sun at the event.
Tell us about yourself?
My name is Aderiyike Makinde. I’m from Ogun State in Nigeria. I’m the creative director of Aderiyike, and I make luxury sustainable sunglasses. I started pretty much a year ago and the inspiration came from trying to build a sustainable brand.
I work in the tech space and I was looking for brands that are century-old in Nigeria and I couldn’t find any. So I’m using my experience and love for fashion. I started doing research into what could be a sustainable brand that I could go into. So during my research, I found out that sunglasses was a very niche area where just one company owned 87 per cent of the global sunglasses market and I was wondering what the reasons could be that was stopping people from entering that market.
So during my research, I started researching how to make sunglasses and that led me into, you know, making sustainable sunglasses using different materials and testing different materials. So I ended up with a material called bio acetate, which simply means a blend of wood pulp and coating to make these sunglasses.
So no plastic was used and the glasses are very durable, very long-lasting, they are polarised, UV 400 and the tints are quite clear so you can actually see. What I try to do is I try to do sunglasses that you can transition from night into day, you know, especially for those of us who like, you know, clubbing. So we are able to be fashionable at all times.
Do you only deal in sunglasses?
So at the moment, the plan is to start out with sunglasses and then to then branch out into manufacturing of the sunglasses. So right now, I design it, I get a third party to help me manufacture those sunglasses. But the long-term plan is to actually start growing the trees and then building the factory, probably in Nigeria, to be able to then produce en mass. There’s a long-term vision, but the first step is to grow the brand, get the name out there, get people to embrace
slow fashion. The glasses are made to be durable, they’re made to be long-lasting, they’re made to be timeless and iconic. So the glasses can be worn, you know, and passed down to generations.
So what are the tips for choosing glasses?
I would say that there is no face type, there’s no shape for sunglasses. What you need is you need the right attitude to be able to carry these glasses.
I always say, wear your glasses, don’t let your glasses wear you. So with the right attitude, whatever you’re going for, you know, when you wear glasses, you own the look, you channel the look that you’re looking for. So if you’re wearing black sunglasses, black sunglasses means you’re ready for business. If you’re going to get contracts, if you’re going for an award, you’re going to perform on the stage. Whenever you wear black sunglasses, it just means you’re ready
for action. Whereas where you wear the colourful, bright, bold colours, it means you want to make a statement. You want all eyes to be on you. That’s when you go big, bold and colourful.
You have to kind of infuse your attitude, your expression into, your sunglasses and it will just set you apart from everyone else in the room.
When you’re not thinking about making sunglasses, what else do you do?
Okay, so apart from making sunglasses, my 9 to/5 day job is, I’m a tech expert, I’m a business analyst. I’m also a chartered accountant. So I’ve been an accountant for 20 years as an accountant, then I switched over into tech and I’m also consolidating that tech with production of my sunglasses as well.
So I’ve got an e-commerce site and hopefully I’m trying to make the page as big as Amazon, as soon as possible. So I’m big into the logistics, the fulfillment and also the packaging of my sunglasses and I’m using tech and AI to help reduce the use of or the reliance on raw materials in marketing the production of the sunglasses.
So, as my name, Aderiyike, implies, it means the crown will take care of you anytime you wear the sunglasses.
