BOLAJO FAWEHINMI : Championing a Cause for Nigerian Models on Global Stage

She is a trained accountant whose passion lies in fashion. Furnished with dreams and aspirations, she is Nigeria’s leading contributor to the fashion value chain, especially in the modelling industry. Bolajo Fawehinmi, the Chief Executive Officer of FEW Model Management, in this chat with Funke Olaode and Sunday Ehigiator, revealed her renewed drive to champion a new cause for Nigerian models on the global stage.

Her lineage name rings a bell in law, activism and philanthropy. Perhaps, the image of the renowned human rights lawyer, late Gani Fawehinmi cuts through the mind. In recent time, Fawehinmi’s name resonates through one of his nieces, Bolajo Fawehinmi.

Bolajo holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the Obafemi Awolowo University, and a Professional and Leadership Development Degree from Harvard Business School. She took interest in modelling and has been a game changer on the international stage. Despite her passion and commitment to her new cause, her parents held a contrary view of her career path.

Starting off as an athlete before discovering her passion for modelling at the university, Bolajo has been a modelling talent-scout and manager since 2015. Famed for her talent in spotting talents, she has repeatedly demonstrated her ability to make world-standard models out of people who never thought they could be one.
“I used to do the high jump and long jump,’’ she recalled. My major was relay and 200-metre race for women. But that story changed when I got into college. Modelling happened when I got to college and obviously, I couldn’t juggle it. So, I picked modelling.”

As the first child of her mother and the ninth child to her polygamous father, Bolajo didn’t allow the discouragements from her parents and other challenges in the industry to weigh her down or slack in the pursuit of her dreams.
She recalled those rough beginnings-when the idea of starting her modelling company left a sour taste on parents’ mouth.

They’d wonder if you’ve studied accounting, why would you end up a model; it doesn’t even work together.
“So, I could understand. But at the time, I didn’t think I was going to accept it. I had met models, they were my friends, and I understood what they were facing in the industry, who they were and who their parents were.”

She said this also birthed her drive to create different narratives of how modelling should be perceived both in Nigeria and all over the world. That was the genesis of creating a company that gives the platform and opportunities to other kids like herself to live their dreams.
“I didn’t even have a dream to become a model and I didn’t even have a dream to own a company that would now represent models or discover models. So, it was never really a dream.

“I think I had more dreams in the athletic field, like I wanted to become this. I was also hungry for that space you know, but I think FEW came about because I felt like there has to be a voice in that industry.
“I was a model, I met good people, I met intelligent people. My parent’s point was that they didn’t believe in the intellectual capacity of models. They believed that they had the resources to send me anywhere I want to be in the world and they just didn’t believe that models had or were kids from good homes.”

Reminiscing on her journey, Bolajo described it as being more delicate than remarkable.
“I wouldn’t say it was easy, but we are in a good space now and I am happy that I can see a lot of other young entrepreneurs being able to go into this business just because we were able to go through it with a certain force.

“We have also tried to break some boundaries to make sure that Africa is seen in a certain way, and once Africa is seen in that way as we want, it will create more opportunities for young people.
“I think we took a lot of heat, you know, being the first mover of that space. I mean, technically just going at it in the way we went at it. To see where we are right now, maybe that’s the remarkable factor.
“It was really bad then. It was no fault of anyone, but it was really bad. We were paid the worst you can think of. Some days, we go to work and we don’t get paid and we were more than happy to do it because at the end of the day, satisfaction comes from passion.”

While expressing gratitude that she never encountered any form of harassment while growing up in the industry, Bolajo however condemned the level of harassment encountered by models while chasing their dreams.
She said, “Although, nature gave me the space to fall into the right hands, I wouldn’t dispute the fact that there were models that have been harassed by the virtue of them wanting to go into modeling.
“It’s even worse in the commercial space. There’s only little harassment or close to none that you can do in fashion. It’s more in the commercial world.

“I can really feel the pains of the commercial models with the level of harassment that they have to go through on different levels, on different stages. We just need to do better as humans. But I think that for me, I’ll speak more on finances.”

For her, it has been quite remarkable to see improvements on the remuneration of models overtime.
“There has been a whole lot from then to now. Even the welfare of the models has improved. Then, we weren’t duly taken care of. We weren’t also seen as people whose opinions mattered. It was just like we were just cloth hangers basically and hangers don’t talk. I’ve seen us revolt against something and it became an issue. They will tell you, ‘You’re a model, why are you going against this, why are you fighting this course, you should be able to do this’.

“I think now there is a difference. We now have a generation of people that can speak out for themselves, that can stand for themselves so those things are less visible now.
“People can now actually say, I can’t work for this amount of money unless it’s this. But note, you can choose to work for whatever pay but if the pay is not within the vicinity of where you are working, nobody can provide it to you.”

She added that models are more valued now in the chain, as people are beginning to raise their budgets for models and seeing them as worthy of their demand.
Still, she urged entrepreneurs and upcoming models not to make money the sole reason for establishing their brands, as it could make them dead to a lot of rules.

“I didn’t have that coming up. I was okay with starting a business and I made a dissemination to myself that part of the things I was going to change in the modeling industry is also financing models.

“So I made sure that the budgets for models were always higher than what they could have gotten working elsewhere. I mean if you go on set as a model and you hear that a model is getting paid like two times of what you are earning, the word goes around. “So I think overtime, we were able to not really structure the price but at least make models understand that they can earn better.”

On activities of FEW in the past few years and what the company would be doing in future, she reeled on the success of the company via its ‘Model Academy’, revealing that the company would now be stopping the academy and launching ‘Going Africa’.

According to her, “the model academy where we try to teach models about the industry has produced winners doing major stuff internationally, but I mean we had to put a stop to that this year.
“I just decided that with everything that has been happening, and with the Covid-19 pandemic; I had a bit of a reflective moment and realised that what was most important for the company and the models we are fighting for is to run an all- inclusive model.

“I realised that anybody can define beauty as they want. If you go to any company and they want to recruit you, they have their policies, they have who they are looking for, you might not be who they are looking for but it doesn’t mean you are a wrong candidate for every other company.

“And it just came to me that maybe there is no need for that competition after all. So a new program, ‘Going Africa’ is the beginning of the future for FEW, not a new FEW.”
She described ‘Going Africa’ as the beginning of a well-constructed scouting future for FEW, and a platform for repositioning African Models at a deserving spot in the global space.