What You Need To Know Before Starting a Sustainable Fashion Consultancy
With Zara Odu
Interview by Stella Hertantyo
Zara Odu is a Nigerian brand consultant and leading advocate with over 15 years of experience in Africa's vibrant creative landscape. As the visionary founder of Designers Consociate and the most recently launched Roundabout, she is committed to advancing conversations surrounding sustainability and the circular economy in Africa.
Zara excels in implementing circular principles, fostering innovation, and optimizing supply chains for African brands seeking global impact. Her local expertise and extensive network grant her an unmatched understanding of the intricate African market tapestry.
She has worked as a consultant to global companies, platforms, and retailers, as well as in-house to some of the largest brands across the continent.
I interviewed Zara in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership about:
How to prepare for a career as a sustainable fashion consultant,
Advice for starting a consultancy,
And how to build a brand identity that resonates with both sustainability-minded consumers and the broader market.
Below are some of the highlights from the conversation. Inside our membership, you'll find the full recording with more insights from Zara (plus unlock our entire session library and resource hub, attend our live events, and connect with a values-aligned community).
What led you to the work you do today?
I come from a creative home. My mother is an interior decorator. Growing up, she was always on the hunt for beautiful furniture and décor for peoples’ homes. She worked with local artisans and everything she sourced was produced locally with local materials. Even in our own home, she would reupholster and repurpose everything. I don’t think she was doing it to be sustainable, but now I know that it was.
I always knew I wanted to work in fashion, but I never knew what area of fashion. Plus I’ve always been in love with anything local. I must have gotten this from my mother. I remember being in school in London and always thinking to myself, “I wonder what it would take to make this in Nigeria?”
I then went on to study a Bachelor of International Communication in Paris. After that, I went back to the UK to do a Masters in Fashion, focusing on local production. My research looked at how to create a luxury brand that’s made in Nigeria using local resources and craftsmanship.
I never started this journey thinking that I wanted to be a sustainable fashion expert. I followed the path I felt called to follow and it ended in sustainable fashion. I knew I didn’t want to work as a designer, because I wanted to be behind the scenes. After my Masters dissertation, I became more and more fascinated by figuring out how fashion brands are built.
When I came back to Nigeria after studying, I was determined to put my ideas into practice. I worked with a well-known Nigerian designer, called Lisa Folawiyo, to help build her brand for almost a decade.
On the side, I was also consulting, because people would reach out and say, “I love what you’re doing with Lisa. Can you do the same thing for me?” That’s how I figured out what it would mean to consult with other people and build up my reputation.
After working in the industry for over 10 years, specifically in Nigeria, but also across Africa, I felt like something was missing. I returned to this idea of process and materials.
I’ve always felt passionate about rethinking how and why we produce fashion. Essentially, I was thinking about sustainable production — even though that was only a term used in the Global North at the time.
I felt called to guide brands to be more aware of their design process, more thoughtful about how they were designing, return to ancient Indigenous traditions, and think about what resources are abundant in a local context. That’s the genesis of how I pivoted into the work I do today.
How do you prioritize continuous knowledge-building, while balancing being a generalist and a specialist as a consultant?
I have access to both. Working in the fashion industry for a long time means that I’ve worn multiple hats. I’ve worked in styling, as Head of Production at Nigeria’s Fashion Week, in public relations, in brand development, and retail. This vast experience has given me a generalist perspective.
But specializing is also important. To specialize, I focused on the direction of my interest. As I said, I’ve always been fascinated by process, materials, and innovation — specifically in an African context. So from a specialist perspective, when I work with brands I’m always pushing them to question: What materials are you using? What's your process like? Where are you sourcing? Who are you sourcing from?
Although, as a consultant, I need to know about more than materials. For example I need to know about climate conversations, what's affecting us here, and what's affecting the Global North. This requires constant research and engaging with people who work broadly in sustainability and not just in fashion.
I constantly make sure I'm learning, growing, meeting other people, and networking. It’s a balance. I’m always drawn to the things that interest me, but I also need to push myself to prioritize the things that are adjacent to my interests and strengthen the depth of my work.
How can people best prepare themselves to work as a consultant in their niche in sustainable fashion?
Formalizing your interests is important. I don’t think a degree is necessary. But, I’ve always said it’s important to study or learn something, even if it’s a short course. There are many elements you can learn on the job, but a level of education is necessary as a foundation.
Formalizing your interests allows other people to trust that you are serious about your passions, skills, and knowledge building.
Secondly, building a network is invaluable. Working in the industry for so long means that I know so many people and this is my biggest asset. I know designers and industry leaders who are now some of my closest friends. Make sure you interact with people and actively nurture and maintain the connections you make in this world.
Then, you need to make sure you stay up to date with trends. I’m always looking into what's happening on the global scene from a sustainability and materials standpoint and how this relates to the African context.
You also need to develop analytical thinking. When you are learning, researching, and staying up to date with trends, you need to be thinking about how this can be a solution to a potential problem and what the tradeoffs are. You need to train your brain to apply the global to the local.
How did you go about starting a consultancy in fashion?
When I was starting my consultancy, the biggest question I asked myself was: What is my unique skill? Refining your offering based on your unique skill, which can create a solution for someone else, is the key.
Once you have reflected on your skills and tailored your offering accordingly, you need to focus on building trust in the industry. In the beginning, you should be open to free conversations and hearing people out to understand their needs better.
Picture from Designers Consociate’s Instagram
I remember I had tons of conversations with designers. I would invite designers over and ask them to tell me about their biggest challenges. I’d visit their studios and offer support. Building one-on-one relationships is essential.
You also need to formalize your creativity. As a creative person, I have many innovative ideas, but I’ve also learned that I need to know how to present them effectively. I remember there was one time when a brand reached out to me for a job. I was meant to send the founder a document with my ideas. But I didn’t put any effort into how I presented the document or my ideas. I just had them outlined in bullet points.
They were great ideas, but she messaged back saying that it wasn’t what she had in mind. I was so shocked! I had to go back and spend weeks figuring out how to present my ideas to a brand.
Over time, I had to learn how to present my ideas and process so that how I work, what I charge, and my expertise is clear to every client. This helps people feel like they can trust you for the service you are providing.
How do you approach building a brand identity that resonates with both sustainability-minded consumers and the broader market?
I get a lot of businesses reaching out to me that are not necessarily sustainable. I embrace this, because it allows me to build up the brand in a conscious way. In these cases, I take my sustainability approach and generalize it.
For example, if you tell me that you want to use plastic packaging or polyester, I will bring my ethos into it and lead you toward other options.
At the end of the day, we both agree that we want to build a brand that stands the test of time. I show brands how to do that, without insisting that they have to call themselves sustainable.
If you use better materials, consider the process, and make 10 pieces instead of 50, your product will stand the test of time. I offer to guide brands through this process.
Brands don't have to put themselves in the box and say, “I'm a sustainable brand.” I'm much more interested in saying, “I want to do things properly.”
My goal, whether it's a "sustainable" brand or not, is to create a high-quality product that has minimal environmental impact, can be repurposed, can be broken apart, and can be reused. I want you to think about the end at the beginning.
How much does material choice matter when it comes to identifying as a sustainable brand? What advice would you give for sourcing sustainable materials? How did you organize your consultancy service offerings and establish a pricing strategy? What is your advice for sustainable brands that are struggling to position themselves as a financially accessible option?
To hear from Zara on these topics and much more, watch the full recording in the Conscious Fashion Collective Membership!