I didn't start making profit till my 15th year in the Hat making Business- Grace Chito Mark, CEO of Graces Hats

The Hat Making Industry in Nigeria, has evolved into a great lucrative business.

On Women Connect, Oyinlola Sale spoke with Grace Chito Mark, CEO of Graces Hats, a pioneer of the hat making business in Nigeria. Grace takes us through her journey that started 40 years ago, when she was in secondary school, her sister came in and saw her doing needle work and said O my God!, i think you can make hats.

To her she wondered what does it mean you can makes hats, but she realised that a seed was sown.

So after her school Cert, she wasn't doing anything, she was playing around with things in the house and before she knew it, she came up with what we call a fascinator today.

She wore it to church and someone came up to her that i love your hat, you keep wearing different colours that matches her dresses, where do you get them. She told the person that she makes them.

Then she told the woman 10 naira, the woman gave her 30 naira and she made three different hats for her. 

So that was how the business grew to what it is today.

Her Creativity comes from what God has created, nature and humans inspire her.

She explained how 15 years into the business, she she became more popular.

She explained how she managed to infuse the african culture in hats.

Grace says fashion changes and you have to go with the trend in making hats, so hats are versatile, you can easily wear it and she makes auto gele.

The challenge she faced was acceptability, she had to keep improving, to give them what they want.

She explained the details that one needs to pay attention to, in order to excel in this field, which is the quality and finishing. She said many people go into the hat making industry and they don't pay attention to details, like the trimming. The QUALITY, FINISHING and STYLE  are very important. 

She recognizes that they are a lot of people doing unique hats but the quality makes it different. Grace revealed  that the most expensive hat she has ever made is 65 thousand Naira.

She left us with a word of advice; 

"Its important to have God and it should be a calling"

Grace has been in the hat making business for 40 years and she didn't start making money till the 15th year.

She narrated her experience, when she travelled to the United States for the first time. She was in her brother's shop in Carolina, and a lady walked in and saw her hats and said she recognized graces hats. 

The woman was so excited to see her there and before they knew it, they created a group called the Hat Ladies of Charleston and which today they are more than a thousand all over America.

So that was the beginning of her selling her hats abroad. 

There was a show in Atlanta, where they crowned her one of thr best female entrepreneurs in Nigeria, and it was a very big show and exhibition.

She met a lady called Vene Washington, who bought her hats and sold it to a white lady going to Kentucky Dubby and a week later they said the first three winners of the competition was Graces hats. The Kentucky Dubby show is like the Ascott show in London.

That was how the lady became her North American distributor.

Grace says her hats evokes emotions and it had taken her around the world.

Follow on Instagram @graceshats

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