Aulgah Ojijo, commonly known by her brand name as Aulgah Nato, is an international award winning fashion designer, who discovered her purpose from resizing her late mother’s clothes.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, October 22, Nato, who was born and raised in Homa Bay County, explained that the circumstances she was forced to live in made her discover her passion and purpose in life.
Nato, who is the fifth born in a family of six, lost her mother when she was nine years old.
She narrated that the death of her mother opened an opportunity which she had never thought would be so instrumental in her life.
“My mother left us with plenty of clothes when she passed on. I had only one sister, and I had plenty of clothes to resize so that I could fit in them."
“Imagine being nine with a whole closet of clothes that don’t fit you? I did the resizing out of love, and I think that’s how my love for designing grew,” Nato narrated.
Nato proceeded to say that as time went by, her purpose in life became more clear. She would spend hours in her room redesigning her mother’s clothes, but always knew that her father wouldn’t let her focus on fashion yet she was going to school.
“Growing up, I was quite scared to tell my dad that I had developed a great sense of fashion. He was a soldier and I knew this could not have a chance,” she stated.
The fashion designer explained that as she grew, she noticed that she had a specific taste in fashion, which she couldn’t find in the market, and resorted to designing her own clothes.
“While out there, I realised there was a gap. This country had low quality and high quality. I couldn’t fit in either, and I decided to start something,” Nato mentioned.
Putting her passion into practice made her make a life-long resolution. Her colleagues loved her taste, and that’s when she put it into practice.
Nato, however, lacked family support, since everyone of them wanted her to focus on what she had studied in class. She tried to have them help her join a fashion school, but they did not.
“I wasn’t able to enroll in a fashion school because my family couldn’t allow it. I took a great risk and enrolled myself, because I had no responsibility. That’s how my journey began,” she noted.
Nato is currently an international fashion designer, who has celebrity clients both in Kenya and internationally.
