“The Pan­dem­ic ini­tial­ly crip­pled me, I lost all of my clients right af­ter our lock­down and was stuck for at least 3 months not know­ing my next move.” Ain Ear­le, Lead Con­sul­tant at The Fash­ion Arch shared. Her next steps were strate­gic, in­ten­tion­al and “Piv­ot” be­came her ethos.

The Dig­i­tal Shift

Step by step Ain piv­ot­ed her ser­vices to the dig­i­tal plat­form, shift­ing her ap­proach and de­liv­ery from con­sul­ta­tions to events. “Af­ter get­ting some calls from oth­er cre­atives go­ing through sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, my ini­tial thought and re­ac­tion was to cre­ate a space of sup­port, I host­ed bi-month­ly vir­tu­al calls with past clients and oth­er cre­atives where we could vent, share ideas and sup­port each oth­er with per­son­al and en­tre­pre­neur­ial pur­suits. This ini­tia­tive is still on-go­ing, al­most 2 years lat­er but now it’s a space of not just sup­port, but of ac­count­abil­i­ty and plan­ning for its mem­bers,” Ain shared.

Step­ping out of the

Com­fort Zone

Ain grew up in a house­hold that al­ways cel­e­brat­ed and recog­nised cul­ture and all things lo­cal. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, she em­braced her knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence in the Fash­ion World and launched her own prod­uct line/brand. “I of­fered styl­ish yet com­fort­able tops/pieces that can be worn for on­line meet­ings at home which now has turned in­to a full cloth­ing line of­fer­ing pieces for work as well as ca­su­al dates, out­ings even trav­el.”

Fast For­ward 2 years lat­er

Through ad­ver­si­ty, with per­se­ver­ance and for­ti­tude, one’s ef­forts are al­ways re­ward­ed.

The Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NED­CO) cel­e­brat­ed twen­ty (20) years of op­er­a­tions in Au­gust 2022. To mark this mo­men­tous mile­stone, NED­CO launched the in­au­gur­al event, the NED­CO Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship Awards, with the aim of high­light­ing re­silient en­tre­pre­neurs and pro­vide them with the na­tion­al recog­ni­tion and ac­claim that they de­serve.

NED­CO shared, “the glob­al pan­dem­ic has been es­pe­cial­ly hard on our mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es (MSEs) which are the back­bone of our econ­o­my. Many, how­ev­er, have been able to buffer its im­pact and not on­ly sur­vive, but thrive! The theme for the in­au­gur­al 2022 event is The Essence of En­tre­pre­neur­ship which ap­plauds the out­stand­ing feats these en­tre­pre­neurs would have ac­com­plished to ex­cel dur­ing these chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times. These awe­some en­tre­pre­neurs tru­ly rep­re­sent what En­tre­pre­neur­ship is all about!”

“Did I ex­pect it? Ab­solute­ly not! There were oth­er in­spir­ing women nom­i­nat­ed in this cat­e­go­ry. I was just hum­bled to be one of them. Then my name was called.”

“Win­ning the Fe­male En­tre­pre­neur Award at this in­au­gur­al Cer­e­mo­ny was trans­for­ma­tion­al. It’s my first award and I am tru­ly grate­ful for the recog­ni­tion. I have been work­ing with so many great stake­hold­ers, part­ners and event man­agers across the re­gion, spoke on var­i­ous pan­els, host­ed my own sum­mit as well been a par­tic­i­pant of var­i­ous ac­cel­er­a­tor pro­grams that have all led me to this point,” Ain shared.

Pur­su­ing her pas­sion

“My sis­ter and I played pan at an ear­ly age, we were in­volved in many ac­tiv­i­ties in school while en­sur­ing aca­d­e­mics was top of mind. I had a pas­sion for help­ing oth­ers and when I was a child, I want­ed to be a teacher and this dream even­tu­al­ly turned in­to be­com­ing a con­sul­tant in the Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism field. I al­ways saw Tourism as some­thing very im­por­tant and a way we can con­nect with the world through our great re­sources and nat­ur­al tal­ents. Be­cause of this pas­sion and be­ing in­tro­duced to the lo­cal fash­ion scene al­most ten years ago I al­ways thought that more could be done to raise aware­ness of and re­spect for the de­sign­ers/cre­atives around me. Af­ter work­ing on lo­cal fash­ion events and see­ing the im­mense tal­ents our cre­atives had to of­fer, I was mo­ti­vat­ed to cre­ate my own busi­ness. From this, The Fash­ion Arch was es­tab­lished in 2016.” Her fo­cus is on fash­ion de­sign­ers, ar­ti­sans and artists as­sist­ing them with growth and brand­ing strate­gies to in­crease their ex­po­sure, sales and even­tu­al­ly sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Ad­vice to Fe­male En­tre­pre­neurs

“Be­ing a cre­ative, es­pe­cial­ly a fe­male cre­ative, isn’t easy, every day is dif­fer­ent and we do so much for so many all the time that we some­times ne­glect our well-be­ing and run our­selves ragged. My mum al­ways says, “you are no good to any­one if you are not good to your­self”, so I tru­ly be­lieve in tak­ing time for self and fill­ing your own cup to be able to pour out for oth­ers. As sim­ple as tak­ing time off, stick­ing to a sched­ule, jour­nalling, hav­ing a plan, or just sim­ply eat­ing well and rest­ing, we all need some self-care to recharge and to con­tin­ue be­ing our best selves.

For those brave­ly start­ing a new busi­ness, Ain shares, “Find your tribe, don't try to do it alone. Noth­ing is ever per­fect so just start and learn along the way and re­mem­ber every­thing takes time.”