Once upon a time 4 uni students put together small small money, went to salaula (thrift) to buy secondhand jeans for K5 each. Ripped, bedazzled them, and sold for K50 each. A business was born @Black_Epitore. 1/

We spent most of the school holiday working on this project. From hand washing the jeans, to cutting and then bedazzling them (So much work!). Our customers mostly uni students loved our bum shorts because they were so unique. 2/

Before venturing into our jeans range we had started out with capital of K200 which we used to buy salaula to resell at the 1st ever student mrkt on campus. That was enough to buy a suitcase of clothes. Our sales for the day were worth K1200. 600% profit! Business was booming! 3/

Our customers were so impressed with our style that they made orders of specific items. Orders on thrift clothing, how? lol. Carrying our list of orders we went looking for those items, mostly finding similar pieces. We kept our customers happy. 4/

We washed, ironed, and bedazzled the clothing to a point they could pass as new. That, including our great sense of style, was the strength of the brand.  5/

During one of our hangouts I got a call from a distressed friend who was going on a date and thought she didn’t look the part. She came through, we helped her with hair styling and makeup and dude proposed that night! A business idea was birthed. 6/

She asked that we style her bridesmaids for her big day. One referral after another & our Saturday mornings were fully booked, doing makeup for weddings with skills learnt from YouTube. This was becoming too stressful. We had to stop this business. 7/