Debola Adebowale: Helping Brands Build Structure and Women Find the Brands Worth Shopping
DEBOLA ADEBOWALE
“I have always been passionate about this industry. Pre-pandemic, working within it, I saw a real gap in business, strategy, operations and administrative skills, and I wanted to help brands formalise and get the right footing to scale.”
Artisans Advisory and BuyerBeWear could not look more different on paper, but for Debola Adebowale they have always been part of the same work. Through Artisans Advisory, her creative advisory agency, she works with African fashion brands to build the structure they need to grow: formalising operations, sharpening how they communicate value, raising the quality of what comes out of the continent. Through BuyerBeWear, she is on the receiving end of the industry, building a shopping community for women across Africa and the diaspora who love to shop homegrown brands but find discovery not so easy to navigate in a market where hundreds of labels launch every year. Two projects, two different problems she decided were hers to solve.
HER CRAFT
Two businesses, one belief in structure and patience
Could you tell us what you do and why it matters to you?
Artisans Advisory is a creative advisory agency, predominantly for fashion brands, built around encouraging structure for indigenous brands, helping them communicate value clearly and improving the overall quality of what comes out of the continent.
BuyerBeWear is much simpler. We run a community for women across Africa and the diaspora who love to shop, and we put together a ready-to-shop newsletter every three weeks featuring our favourite recent finds.
Why do I do both of these? I have always been passionate about this industry. Pre-pandemic, working within it, I saw a real gap in business, strategy, operations and administrative skills, and I wanted to help brands formalise and get the right footing to scale.
What led you into starting both ventures?
BuyerBeWear began as a passion project. The industry is full of brands with little differentiation, which makes discovery harder, and new brands launch on a weekly basis. Finding and shopping for them can be a challenge, and we wanted to demystify that while injecting some fun into product discovery.
Artisans Advisory felt like exactly what my skills were suited for within the industry. I don't see myself as a creative, but as creative-aligned. I love drawing straight lines through designers' circles of thinking.
What message do you want to convey through your work?
I want to show that the industry can grow not just horizontally but that we can build on our learnings and create an industry that understands the context of where we live, and develops world-class solutions from a small place.
Debola Adebowale at Oriré’s presentation during Lagos Fashion Week 2025
How have both your businesses evolved since you started them?
BuyerBeWear was meant to be a fun project I thought I would do for a little while and stop. I don't think our community would forgive me if I hung up these shoes. I have also built the team from young women with no formal fashion background, as a training ground for them to test ideas and learn while having fun. I really enjoy working with them, crossing their Ts and dotting their Is.
The growth has been unexpected, but I love that it resonates with so many people. We've hosted three physical events since inception and plan to do lots more this year. We've hit 1,000+ email subscribers, which is also a treat. Brands have been able to recognise that the girls are clicking and they are shopping. And I just love that the feedback from our community is usually that they love the page and feel it's for them.
Artisans Advisory publications
What are you focusing on in your business at the moment?
With Artisans Advisory, We’ve been working on a few things internally to change the way we work and also just challenge the agency model. I think its always important to step back and reassess the way we work from time to time. To make sure we are bringing out the best work for our clients. Really excited for what the rest of this year will look like.
With BuyerBeWear, it's more events. We have a couple of ideas in the pipeline that we're shopping for the right partners to land. If it all comes together, it will be a great year, though we're pacing ourselves.
Any work highlight?
Artisans Advisory has seen real wins with the clients we've worked with: breaking into new markets, developing specialised products, and honing distinctive brand identities. We took a break last year, so this year is still wide open for some great evolution with the clients we're taking on.
For BuyerBeWear, The Switch up! and our Tea Party stand out. The Tea Party in December last year in Lagos was bigger and better than before, and it put us in exactly the right mood to keep the ball rolling.
Moments at Buyer BeWear’s The Switch Up! event
HER LESSONS
Unproven business models and the gospel of consistency
What major hurdles you faced you would like people in the industry to learn from?
I won't call it pioneering, but maybe working with business models that haven't really been tested in this market. Explaining Artisans Advisory when we first began was challenging, because a lot of brands struggle to put a monetary value on a service like ours. But after twelve to eighteen months of consistent work, the results show. The brand is transformed, and you can't revert to working the way you once did.
For BuyerBeWear, a newsletter model doesn't behave like a traditional business. Even explaining the Tea Party as more than a pop-up often falls on deaf ears. But I'm a patient person. The early adopters come first, then the early minority, and so on. Eventually people understand, but you have to know it might take years.
A top lesson you've learnt that changed the way you operate?
We’re in the ideas business. Some people have great ideas but poor execution. Some people execute well on bad ideas. The best people figure out how to execute on the best ideas. That’s what we strive for.
A top or recent piece of advice you've received that changed the way you operate?
Do it afraid.
A habit you're trying to build in your work?
Completing my to-do list at the end of every day. This might be slightly toxic, though.
HER ENERGY
Solving other people's problems, and meeting the girls in real life
Artisans Advisory and Buyer BeWear founder, Debola Adebowale
What do you enjoy the most in your work?
With Artisans Advisory, it's solving other people's problems. My favourite thing in client meetings is understanding what a designer is trying to explain when they don't have the words yet, then being able to tap into their vision and expand it into the bigger picture.
With BuyerBeWear, it's meeting the girls in real life. I'm always a little shy, but it's nice to know people are reading the emails, discovering things, finding them useful, and feeling like part of something.
What keeps you going?
Ultimately, the fact that I know I owe a lot of things to God and to myself. If I'm not doing those things, I hold myself accountable. I'm a big believer that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, so I just have to get over myself and get the work done.
How do you stay inspired, and how do you nurture your creativity?
I think the best way to nurture creativity is to work on it. The more ideas you work through, the better the quality of ideas you get. It's a muscle.
A motto you live by?
You can do hard things. And you should.
Any affirmation that keeps you going at the moment?
I have a lot of fun, on the clock and off it.
HER COMMUNITY
A hidden force, and an ever-growing circle
“Community is everything. I have a support system, maybe not all connected, but I’m a big believer in people. A problem shared is often half solved. I haven’t achieved anything big by myself, so I think community is the hidden force that makes things possible.
I have friends in similar stages of building things, people ten times smarter than me, older people, wiser people, younger people. Sometimes it’s just a conversation, a small piece of information, some insight into something, even just resharing the things I post on Instagram. My community has done it all, especially over the last couple of years.”
Buyer BeWear’s team
Buyer BeWear’s celebrating 3 years in business
ON HER RADAR
Data research
What are you curious about at the moment?
Data. How we get it, and how we use it.
“I want to show that the industry can grow not just horizontally but we can build on our learnings and create an industry that understands the context of where we live, and develops world-class solutions from a small place.
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HER STYLE
An oversized blazer, a never-ending brand list and a soft spot for Emmy Kasbit
Your wardrobe essentials?
In London, an oversized blazer, recently one from Emmy Kasbit.
Your go-to destination to discover African and diaspora brands?
Haha, BuyerBeWear?
Some of your favourite African and diaspora brands?
I don't think I'm allowed to say this, there are too many great ones. Personally: Pepper Row, Abiola Olusola, Garbe, Stella Yedia, Y'Wande, Bibiéré, Nya, Malité. There are loads of them. This list is basically never-ending.
Specific pieces you have your eye on from African and diaspora fashion brands?
I always sneak these into the BuyerBeWear newsletters, so I'm absolved. It's somehow cathartic to share them and live vicariously through the women who buy them in the end.
Debola Adebowale wearing Pepper Row at a former edition of Lagos Fashion Week’s Woven Threads
THE CONNOISSEUR EDIT, INSPIRED BY HER
BIBIERE Seye Set
MALITE Sunday Two Piece Set Candy Plaid Breeze
YWANDE Kafi Set
GARBE Akanke Cropped Linen Top
STELLA YEDIA Boma Cutout Ankle Lenght Dress Orange
NYA Two Piece Batik Beach Dress
Debola Adebowale has been watching the African fashion ecosystem closely for long enough to know exactly where it needs help. She built Artisans Advisory for the brands that have the talent but not yet the structure. She built BuyerBeWear for the women who want to shop those brands but can't always find them. Neither model was easy to explain at first. Both required years of patient, consistent work before the market caught up. She was not bothered. She knew it would.
Follow Debola at @artisansadvisory and @buyerbewear, and explore www.artisansadvisory.com and www.buyerbewear.co.
Explore the previous portrait with African Fashion Guild founder, Ntombi Khambule, and subscribe to the NDAANE newsletter to stay across every conversation in the series.