Named after its founder, Nkechi Harry Ngonadi, and founded in 2013, NHN Couture is a fashion brand that specialises in creating decent fashion for the stylish woman.
Fashion is served in various ways and through various forms. Each fashion brand brings to the table a story and style aesthetic that must appeal to its target market. For every brand this is different. While some brands go with the status quo but bring their uniqueness into it, others go against it completely.
The Inside Nigeria series is written from our deep study and knowledge of the fashion industry and presented with the aim of providing insight for budding fashionpreneurs.
This week, we extensively looked at the NHN Couture, a brand that goes against the status quo of indecency in the fashion industry and still finds a way to infuse trending styles into its designs and thrive.
Here’s how they do it;
The NHN Couture Story
Nkechi started the brand in 2013 brand with a mission to bring “decency back to church first, and the society at large”. She tagged the brand “a ministry first and a clothing line second”.
In a society that sexualises the female body, she set out on a tough mission to change the narrative. Her conviction is that a woman doesn’t have to expose parts of her body to be sexy and this led to her motto “covered yet sexy, fabulous and simply classy”.
With highly stylish and decent pieces, she also uses her brand to catch the attention of her target audience and spread the Word concerning her Christian faith. Through the NHN brand, the entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and fashion designer hopes to educate, enrich and empower women.
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The Unique Touches of NHN Couture
NHN Couture focuses mainly on designing and creating occasional and corporate wears. The brand designs outfits that are suitable for events such as weddings, birthday parties, dinner parties, award ceremonies, and the likes. With its high taste in style, it is able to channel the essence of ceremonial wear through its designs.
In order to create outfits that appeal to its target market, the brand never shies away from trending styles and designs. With exclusive fabrics only available to NHN Couture, Nkechi and her team create outfits with infusions of the hottest trends in them. From outfits with bishop sleeves to those with sequins, fringes, and cut-outs in them, the NHN brand has been positioned as the go-to for style and class.
NHN Couture is characterised by lots of glitz and glamour as most of its outfits sparkle and shine. The lace fabrics, in all types, make up a big part of the brand’s designs. Also, bringing the glitz into the brand, it is big on embellishing its pieces with sequins, beads, stones, applique, and feathers. All of these come together to create truly remarkable pieces.
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How NHN Couture Thrives Despite a Focus on Decent Fashion
With 8 years under its belt, NHN Couture still stands strong in a fashion industry that majorly preaches a story different from its own. The brand and its founder have won various awards including the Designer Of The Year award at the Runway Dubai fashion show in 2018, La Mode Magazine fashion designer of the year award in 2017, and 100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria award in 2017, amongst others.
So, how has NHN Couture risen to prominence in the fashion industry despite its focus on decent fashion? How has it been able to go against the fashion status quo and still thrive? Here’s how;
1. Sticking to the Mission
From the start of the brand will now, NHN Couture has kept its focus on the mission. The brand has stuck to its brand story, despite being against the status quo in the fashion industry, without wavering. With all of its designs, no matter how in line with trends they are, all of its outfits speak decency.
Through sticking to its decency message, the brand has attracted its target market.
2. Leveraging old trends and Creating New ones
Even though the NHN Couture brand has a focus on decency, it never ignores trends. It has been able to effortlessly infuse trends into its designs to make them appealing to its clients. It, however, picks its trends carefully and ensure they allow for decency.
Also, the brand has succeeded at giving each of its clients a unique look that stands out from the crowd. By doing this, they can step out in style looking different but in a good way.
3. Using Exclusive Fabrics
The brand uses fabrics that are exclusive to it. Its fabrics are like none other and cannot be found in any other brand. This has given it a uniqueness and appeal that sets it in a class of its own.
Its exclusive fabrics are beautiful, fun, and very well embellished. This means that its customers don’t just get decent outfits, but they get uniquely beautiful ones too. By adopting this strategy, the brand has been able to stand boldly against the status quo.
Even with the fashion industry mostly going in a different direction than it, NHN Couture has succeeded at preaching decency in a classy way. The brand has shown that with a focus on the goal, any fashion brand can go against the norm and still thrive.
