Hajia Fatima Bello Azeez is a beautiful woman who makes other women beautiful. She is a big player in the Aso Oke Fabric business. Call her the Queen of Aso oke and you won’t be wrong. Jumrash, her brand is big. She is in a happy mood right now as she celebrates her birthday and she is not leaving any stone unturned to celebrate good life and thank God for how far she has gone in life and business.
Remember JumrashAso-Oke is a name that is synonymous with class and elegance, and this is the reason why their throng of clients has stayed loyal to the brand all these years. The very thriving business which is owned by Hajia Fatima Bello, is a third generation business which started with her grandmother, passed onto her mother and now Hajia Fatima and her sister inherited and run the AsoOke business.
Needless to say that Hajia Fatima being a young and creative person introduced a lot of new concepts such as customizing and stoning the AsoOke, designing lace, voile lace, sequins, crystals, Ankara motifs, silk Ankara, men and women Senegalese, men’s outfits, etc. They also do blings on AsoOke, Ankara, t-shirts, laces, glasses, silk and chiffon, plus bridal accessories.
The boom in the AsoOke business which necessitated the brand having two outlets, in Ogba Lagos and Isheri Road, Ogba beside County Hospital also in Lagos, has also seen the Jumrash Store opening a lekki branch. The JumrashLekki outlet is located at Nelle Mall, along Admiralty Way, Lekki Phase 1.
The very beautiful Hajia Fatima has created and sets the trend in the AsoOke business, and this has kept her ahead of competitors in the business because one can easily find various varieties of fashion pieces and accessories at the Jumrash outlets.
However, despite the quality of asooke and services available at Jumrash, the fabrics, outfits, and asoOke are very affordable as they cater to all classes, lower, middle, and upper classes. Yes, one can get asoOke for 7-15,000 and a bridal asoOke from 150,000 upwards.
Hajia Fatima aka Jumrash who styles many celebrity women and socialites and also consults for some First Ladies across Nigeria says that her good jobs have given her many referrals even to places she didn’t expect to get clients from. However, she also says that their ability to infuse their ideas to the clients thus giving them many options has been one of the strengths.
“Since taking over the brand 12 years ago, we have tried to stand out by customizing our designs and our designs come out well on both the soft and the hard asoOke. Secondly, our ideas are usually very different and creative and our clients buy into it once we share it with them and note that each client has a different concept, so our concepts are not replicated”.
She also explained that the difference between now that she is running the business from when her mom was in charge is just that her mom worked with the old style of asoOke, while she modernized it with her creativity.
“We are from Ibira tribe in Kogi state and asoOke is our major occupation, so my mom and grandmother were only working with that style, but when I came on board I introduced beading and stoning to the asoOke and it was widely accepted” she explained further. To Hajia Fatima nothing much has changed in the AsoOke trend as the hard and soft AsoOke which is available now has always been what is available, only those preferences differ. A case study is the Yoruba’s who like hard asoOke while the northerners prefer soft AsoOke.
Hajia Fatima is a very satisfied businesswoman who has put in time and effort and is reaping the rewards today, however, it was not always this rosy for her as she has experienced some pains in the past, like the death of her two children jumai and Rasheed through an accident and she chose to honor their memories by naming her business after them, that is how the name Jumrash came to be.
Speaking on how the brand has metamorphosed into a group of companies, Hajia Fatti Bello expressed her happiness on how they have tried to take the business to the next level. “Jumrash is a brand name. A business entity that has given birth to many other businesses like Jumrash Logistics and Delivery services, Jumrash Foods, jumcustmetics Jumrash Foundation jumrash fabrics for his and her also customized all kind of fabrics Hollandia’s name it .But if what you intend to ask is who is the person behind the brand? Then that will be God Almighty through my humble self; Hajia Fatima Bello Azeez”
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
