Ade Hassan on moving beyond 'one-nude-fits-all' - Episode 2

AH 0:00

It was like a light bulb went on. And I just thought: nude bra.

TS 0:04

Hello, and welcome to episode two of Made For Us. If it's your first time joining, it's great to have you. In a nutshell, this show is about the intersection of innovation and inclusion. And it's for anyone who's curious about how to design products that work better for all of us.

I'm your host, Tosin Sulaiman, a podcaster and former business journalist. Each week I'll be speaking to entrepreneurs and leaders from some of the world's most inclusive companies who will be sharing the how, the what, and the why of inclusive design. In this episode, I'll be speaking to Ade Hassan, founder of Nubian Skin, which was the first brand to offer nude lingerie and hosiery for women of color when it launched in twenty fourteen. Three years later, Ade received an MBE from Prince William for services to fashion. The award recognized Ade's commitment to redefine nude. And as you'll learn in this episode, the outsized impact she's had on the fashion industry.

I started by asking Ade about the MBE, and her most memorable moments since launching Nubian Skin.

AH 1:04

That's such a good question. And it's such a difficult question, because I've been so many moments. But yes, absolutely. The MBE is up there. And it's still something I'm still trying to process. You know, it was like five years later. But yeah, getting that letter, which came at one of those moments where I was like, soul searching as an entrepreneur being like, is this worth it? And getting a letter, which says, you know, you've been nominated to receive an MBE for services to fashion, I remember breaking down into tears, because I was just like, Oh, my goodness, like, somebody recognizes this work on that level, it just never crossed my mind that that was even a possibility. So yeah, that's definitely one of the key moments.

And one of my favorite moments was when actually before we launched, it was when I'd had all these ideas, creative ideas about how I wanted to portray the product and the shoot I wanted to do. And I executed the shoot. And the models were amazing. And the photographer was amazing. And I put an image of these four beautiful black women in Nubian Skin lingerie on Instagram, and it went viral. And that moment, that whole process, the few months of it, and we hadn't even launched the website properly then. But that moment of people going, Oh, my goodness, especially especially black woman, looking at those images and going, I see myself, I see my sister, I see my aunt. I love this. And then reposting and retweeting and redoing all of it, and creating a viral moment, when I have no marketing budget, that moment was just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

TS 2:38

And you got lots of press coverage because of that. So even before you had officially launched the product, you were in, you know, the fashion magazines and newspapers.

AH 2:46

That was the craziest. Because now if I look back, and I was advising myself, I'd be like, You need to get a marketing plan together. But then we were in basically every major magazine's website without having PR, without having connections within the industry. I mean, it was really a testament to the power of community.

TS 3:11

Another thing that your brand might be well known for is dressing Beyonce and her dancers. Tell us about that. What went through your mind when they first approached you?

AH 3:20

I genuinely genuinely thought it was a scam. I remember getting an email, I think came into like our general info box, saying, hey, yeah, we'd love to work with you on the formation tour. And I was like, delete, that doesn't happen to like small, independent brands, like that just doesn't happen. And then I had a few friends who worked in this space, like they kind of knew the stylist industry and the entertainment industry. And I remember just thinking, I'll just ask them, there's no harm in asking. So I sent them an email saying, hey, this person says they work with Beyonce. And they said they want to work on the Formation Tour. And I feel like it's a scam. They were like, respond right now we know him. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.

I remember we just played like non stop music after I emailed him because I was like, Okay, we need to like manifest that this actually happened. I didn't even have tickets to the show. The wardrobe manager got me tickets because I didn't even like get my hands on tickets. And so that was a really amazing moment. And I think Beyonce and her team do a lot to highlight and empower black owned brands, which I just think is an amazing thing given you know, how big of a star she is.

TS 4:27

And it's not just Beyonce, but it's the wider entertainment industry that has embraced Nubian Skin. I believe your products have appeared in a few films.

AH 4:35

Yes, actually, the entertainment industry, whether that's in film, movies, TV, or even the theater has been, because obviously wherever there's culture, there's black people, right? And for so long, they've been so many women and men who just haven't had very, very basic things, nude colored underwear, or nude colored tights in their tone. And so yeah, we've worked with like

I remember once we got this insane order from Disney like Disney Land, it was like ridiculous numbers. And I guess, you know, they've got so many performers. And then we were in the Hidden Figures film, because obviously it was a period piece. And hosiery was such a big thing back then. And so we did all the hosiery for that, which was amazing, because I was like, Oh my gosh, like fangirling over the actresses and that. I can't think of all of them now. But yeah, a lot of different stage plays a lot of films and TV shows. And it's, it's really amazing actually, to think that, you know, these people keep coming back because it's needed. And we created something that worked so well for black people.

TS 5:38

That must have been a pinch me moment, like seeing actresses on screen wearing your products

AH 5:43

Yeah, I mean, it's like one of those things, like, when I got to the screen I'd be like, wait, I'm in a cinema, like calm down, but it makes me proud. And it makes me feel really happy. Because sometimes I think we look at entertainers and celebrities, and we think, Oh, they have access to everything. And it makes me really, really, really proud that I created a product that they needed, like even at their height of celebrity people still were catering to them, which is ridiculous. And so it just makes me really proud that Nubian Skin has been able to provide that.

TS 6:12

So I wanted to go back to life before Nubian Skin. So was being an entrepreneur always part of the plan, because I understand that both of your parents were entrepreneurs?

AH 6:22

So yes, it has been it has been a dream of mine, since I was very, very young. And I would see my mom go into her office and look amazing in a power suit and be called Madame and I loved it, I loved it. I loved it. And so I always wanted in my career to be an entrepreneur, I'd always wanted to work in finance, actually. And I did do that. And I loved it and learn so much from that. But it was always in the long term plan. I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

TS 6:51

So let's talk about how you got the idea for the business. Was there a particular moment that the light bulb went off in your head?

AH 6:58

Yes, there is. My career had mainly been in finance. But I took a year out actually, I took two years that one to go live my dream and live in Paris, which was amazing. And then one year, I thought, oh, maybe I'll try consulting. And I didn't like consulting. But it's good that I used to do it because I was wondering if I would, but it was while I was on a project. I remember at the time I was in Gloucester, on a project site. And I had been thinking about different business ideas, and nothing was really sticking. And it was literally, you know, like you said, it was like a light bulb went on. And I just thought, nude bra.

And then I started Googling. And I started like searching because it was something that I always wanted. And I remember I had sort of a really weird brownie color bra. But it wasn't a nude brown. But it was brown brown. And it didn't even fit anymore. But I just had it because I was like this is like the only brown bra I found. So I started researching and researching and nobody was doing it. And that moment, I remember sending a friend at the time a text saying, I figured out what I wanted to do when I grow up, because I was like this is it. Nobody's doing it. This is like this is meant to be. I'm gonna do it. And, and I did.

TS 8:07

And it seems so obvious now that people should be able to find bras and tights that match their skin tone, but it wasn't obvious to most of the fashion industry at the time. So explain from your point of view. Why did Nubian skin need to exist?

AH 8:23

I needed Nubian skin to exist because I needed it. Like I was essentially my first customer. As with anything, I mean, it just makes sense. I mean, women and fashion, your foundations of your outfit. That's so so important, right? Like it sets you up. It's like build, it's the scaffolding, right. And then you can run whatever you want underneath it, you need to feel comfortable underneath. And also our skin is such a, it's so much a part of who we are. And if a white woman can walk into a shop, and she wants to wear any fashion, right? And she's like, I want to wear a cut out dress or I want to wear a dress made completely of lace and I want to look amazing underneath and have it be seamless. She can do that. And I couldn't do that and I loved fashion, right? So I'm thinking, right, if I have a sheer blouse, I'm wearing a black camisole underneath it, or a white camisole underneath it. And that's not really the look I'm going for, and why should I not be able to create the look I'm going for? Even if fashion may seem frivolous to some people, why shouldn't I be able to do something I want to simply because of the color of my skin. It is ridiculous. And so I knew that I was not the only woman that felt this way. So many women who looked like me who have darker skin who felt this way and were being excluded. And it didn't make sense. And so that's why I knew, I was like I have to create this company, this needs to change.

TS 9:47

And so you said that you did research, you spoke to people who had the same issue. How confident were you that the market was actually big enough and that this could be a viable business.

AH 9:57

So from a numbers game, I mean it made sense, right? The market is out there. First of all, I knew I needed it. And then I remember online, I found this campaign. And it was called, like, where's my nude? And it was a woman basically, taking to task, the lingerie industry being like, seriously, why don't you have nude, and I looked at it and you know, people sort of said like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But nothing had been done about it. And I mean, I'm Nigerian, right. So I know, first of all, just there's a whole continent that's majority black people, right? And then you look at the US, which, again, that's 15%. African American, right. So that's a huge number when you look at population of the US, let alone the diaspora all over the globe. And so I knew that the women existed. Women buy bras every single day, every single day, the majority of women on this planet are not white, like it was a no brainer. I mean, that is not to say that we've reached, oh, my God, I wish I had. But you know, I knew from just a numbers game that there was a market there.

TS: 11:08

So once you decided you were going to start the business, did you have a pretty clear idea of what it would take and what did you do next?

AH: 11:14

I had no idea how hard it would be to run a business. No idea. But I think most entrepreneurs don't, right, which is great. Because when you're naive, you're like, Yeah, of course I can do this. I was like hardworking, I'm smart. I can do this, I can do this. So you start and then you realize, like, Oh, my goodness, this is so much work. We've already started so then you just carry on. But so I didn't, I had no idea. I had no experience. I had no contacts in the fashion industry. But I did have a lot of determination. I had a brain. And so I knew that I could learn, it took longer, I was used to having worked in finance and been very corporate, I was used to okay, if I want something to happen, it will happen. Like, I thought, I'll start this business in three months, I had no idea.

I came up with the concept in Twenty Eleven. I launched in Twenty Fourteen, I was actively working on it from like Twenty Twelve, Twenty Thirteen. So, you know, to bring it to fruition once I really actively started working on it took about a year and a half to two years, much longer than I thought it would. But the one thing I did do was I had a roadmap, I knew where I was starting, which was literally I have nothing and I know nothing, too. I want to have a functioning website and be able to ship out parcels. And then I literally just said, Okay, if I know where I am, and I know what my endpoint is. I'm putting every single detail into a spreadsheet. And I'm just gonna go one day, I'm gonna do one thing. And that was basically until launch.

TS: 12:42

What were some of the initial challenges that you faced in the design phase? Because you decided to offer four nude tones? How did you bring that to life?

AH: 12:52

So the first and most difficult thing at the beginning was nobody made those colors, right. So when you go to a textile company, so somebody that provides fabrics, specifically lingerie, fabrics, they will have white, they will have black, they'll have beige, which they considered nude, and then they'll have some fashion colors, you know, like whatever happens to be the flavor digital, so maybe it's rare. Maybe it's paint, maybe it's green, but they don't, generally they don't have brown, unless it's like a fashion brown that happens to be in style that season. They definitely do not have multiple skin tones of brown. They may have like a light beige and a darker beige, but they don't have brown skin tones. And so I had to create the colors. And at first I thought this is fine Pantone has lots of swatches, I'll order some Pantone swatches, got the Pantone swatches, and I was like, Oh, these aren't skin colors. So it really was right. So like, how do you create them. And so I started visiting makeup counters, and trying to match makeup swatches or makeup like colors, foundations to Pantone colors. That didn't work. Then sort of use foundations as a basis to try and work with factories to create colors. And then that was like a year long process of going back and forth saying this isn't right. This isn't deep enough until I had four colors that I was happy with. But that process took about a year, year and a half.

TS: 14:17

And I remember reading somewhere that it also involved experimenting with tea and coffee.

AH: 14:24

So essentially, I got the colors for the brands and I was like this is brilliant. And then hosiery is sheer, right, so it's a completely different fabric to the, to the colors that the bras or the fabrics that the bras are going to be needing. And so I had, I think two of the four colors that I was happy with with the hosiery and the other two just weren't coming out right. And so finally I was like you know what, this is it. So I had in my kitchen in my flat pots of black tea, pots of rooibos tea. It has like red elements in it. Pots of coffee. I was like just dipping different tights in them. And I was like, right, one of these is going to work. And so literally just sort of experimenting with them, however many minutes, maybe leaving a little bit longer if it wasn't enough, and then drying them, and then putting them on and going, oh my gosh, we have one, we have one we have one. So finally that was how I got the last two colors. And then I sent those to the tights manufacturer to say, you need to copy like this, this, this swatch that I've given you, this is what you need to copy. It was a process. It's really funny now like because that was that was 10 years ago, looking back at it, and just the journey is it's emotional, and it was a really fun phase.

TS: 15:41

At least you can smile and laugh about it now. And so you ended up having to custom make the dyes. Is that right?

AH: 15:48

Yes. So to this day, our colors are custom. Whenever we work with a manufacturer, we have to provide them with our own fabrics. And so we then have to go to the textile companies who make the fabrics that we use and who make the straps that we use and the hook and eyes that we use, like everything that people don't think about the cut and gussets that we use and give them our colors to manufacture to create, which we then send to our manufacturer and then use that to make make our colors. So yeah, it's sort of our it's all bespoke, it's all my intellectual property. And if any brands are doing anything that's remotely decent in terms of shades for black women, they've ripped it off of us because we literally have the receipts of like every brand that's bought from us.

TS: 16:36

And when it comes to customer research, how are you approaching that? And how has it informed how the brand has evolved? Because you're now offering an extended range of sizes, menswear, as well?

AH: 16:47

Yeah, so we're always listening to our customers and we get you know, emails and we get feedback from existing customers or people who want us to do things, who may be our customers yet. Social media was always a really good sounding board. Now we're very focused on customer surveys and speaking to loyal customers directly just to understand what they want and what it is about the brand that works for them. And so customer research and and speaking to our customers is a really big part of that.

TS: 17:16

And you also launched Softies recently. Can you talk a bit more about that?

AH: 17:21

Of course. So the Softies project is an amazing thing to be part of. In twenty, I want to say twenty twenty-one, I was approached by Natalie Johnson, who is a breast care nurse. At the time, she was working with the Royal Marsden, I think now she works at Imperial, but she is also a customer of Nubian Skin and has actually been in some of our campaigns. This is this phenomenal woman. And she said, Ade, can I have a chat with you? And I said, Yeah, of course. And she said, Do you think Nubian Skin could make softies and I was like, that's not really what we do. And she explained that she as a breast care surgeon had patients who were black women or Asian women, basically women of color, who were coming in and they had to have a mastectomy, which is when they have their breasts removed because of breast cancer. And they were giving them softies and softies are a breast form, which you put in your bra, sort of the first prosthetic you have after surgery, and some women go on and use that for the rest of their lives. And they were giving them beige ones, because that's all they had. And she had reached out to softies manufacturers to ask them to make darker colors. And she'd been ignored. And so she said, You know, I know Nubian Skin has these colors. Do you think you could make softies? And I have lost an aunt to breast cancer, and I have an aunt who's a survivor. And it just made sense. You know, I didn't know how to make softies. But I said, we'll figure it out. Like, yes, we definitely want to do that. I mean, and Natalie is amazing. She was going to try and fundraise to finance it. But then the Royal Marsden actually was running an innovation den. And so we did, you know, quick product development, created a prototype and said, This is something we would love funding for the Royal Marsden to do. And they saw the value in it immediately.

So a few months later, we were able to launch a pilot program where they were able to test the softies that we'd created and we were using, you know, organic natural fabrics, as opposed to synthetic fabrics, which is just kinder to the skin. And they were obviously in our colors, hearing the feedback from patients who, after, you know, Natalie, and then there was Sarah Adomah, who was a breast care nurse. So she's the one who's really speaking to these ladies. You know, I remember we had an interview with the BBC, and afterwards, she says, I'm actually on my way now to meet with a patient, and I'm so happy I can give her an option of four colors. You know, because something so brutal as losing a body part, just having something that shows that you've been considered is so important for the recovery process. And so that's the story behind softies.

TS: 20:01

What kind of feedback did you get from the women who used the softies? I think a lot of women were really emotional because there were women who actually had softies. But obviously were the wrong color. So they were able to get them in the right color. And then I think for the women who were able to be offered it. At that moment, I think it really was just, oh, okay, this feels like me, this doesn't feel strange. And I remember when I was picking up my son from nursery, there was another older lady there who, you know, I'm friendly with. And she'd seen on BBC the segment when we were talking about the softies, and she just came up to me and gave me the biggest hug. And she said, my best friend passed away from breast cancer. years ago. She goes, when they gave her a softie, she was so devastated, she goes, I just wished she had been alive to see this, she's like, You have no idea how much this would have meant. So yeah, the, I'm getting, I'm tearing up because people just don't understand, I think appreciate how important it is to feel like you were taken into consideration, especially in vulnerable moments like that.

In the next part of our conversation, at a talks about the price of success, and how she's dealt with brands trying to imitate Nubian Skin.

AH: 21:18

I mean, we've had it all, we've had very, very large retailers, we've been very excited to work with, say, hey, we'd love to work with you, we'd love to do an exclusive. And you know, we've gone in there, and we've been like, brilliant, these are the colors, these are the shapes these are, you know, like, sending them lookbook, sending them information, sending the swatches off for them to turn around and go, actually, we're gonna do this internally, you know, like dagger to the heart, I can smile about I wasn't smiling then. We've had orders that are literally just like Head of Product Development. big corporation, you're like, Okay, ouch. Please don't do that. But I mean, obviously can't stop it, because they'll just order it under a different name. We've had orders come in that are for, you know, every style and every color. And we're going Oh, that's interesting. And then you put the address into Google. And it's like Marks and Spencer head office. So like, just everybody, everybody.

On the one hand, you had some people who would sort of use whatever browns and the colors were terrible. And then as the colors started getting better, they were basically using our colors, it's fashion, it happens, you just kind of have to figure out how to continue to differentiate yourself and speak to your customer. But it is frustrating. And I can talk about it very sort of like calmly now. But then it caused me significant stress and anxiety, unbelievable amounts of stress and anxiety. But you know, now I just realized one, it's the nature of the business that I'm in but also to I've learned to manage stress and anxiety much better.

And that's always going to be the case, when you're an innovator, when you're doing something new people always gonna let us sort of like, bear the brunt of the cost, that's downside of being a first mover, then you know, they can do it cheaper, they can do it faster, or, you know, whatever, they have their advantages, but small businesses also have their own superpowers. So it's just figuring out what those are.

TS: 23:12

I asked Ade about a marketing campaign by a major UK retailer that recently launched its own inclusive lingerie line, I was curious to know what she thought about their claim to have been inspired by conversations around racial inequality following the death of George Floyd.

AH: 23:27

Everybody, I think, especially black people have seen when something is topical, and people feel like they're on the back foot, you know, these companies also have really big marketing departments, right? And you sort of go, Well, what's topical? And what can we use sort of like springboard this and make it seem like we're being progressive? I'll very frankly say I don't think that was genuine. But I think from a marketing perspective, you know, it worked. If people were really thinking about empowering the black community, then, you know, don't steal from a black business and work with them. That's a very easy way to do it. But you know, business is business. And I think, you know, from a business perspective, some people saw companies see the value in jumping on a bandwagon, and you just sort of have to look and see if long term it's something that they decide to stick with, or whether it's something that just happened to be trending at the time.

TS: 24:17

And obviously, the industry has come a long way. What are the changes that you would like to see going forward?

AH: 24:24

I think the more that young black people or young brown people can walk into a shop or go on a website and have representation, the more there is, that's good, right? That's a really positive thing. And so there's 101, more than actually, brands that sell beige nude, right? So there's space for multiple brands. Actually, in an ideal world, every brand would have all the different shades of nude, from pale pale to dark, dark because that would be ideal representation.

And so there's room for multiple players in the industry. And I think that, well, I would love to see Nubian Skin continue to grow and scale. But I also would love for the day where it's a non issue, because even now, like you walk into a shop, maybe you'll see a brand that has it, but maybe not. It would be amazing, you know, if I have a daughter one day for her to walk into a shop, and she doesn't even think, because it's just like, Yeah, of course you're catered to that, I think would be magic.

TS: 25:33

So finally, what advice would you have for companies that would like to develop more inclusive products? How do they get started on this journey?

AH: 25:42

Well, it depends on what your industry is, because there's a need for inclusivity in basically, just about every industry, you know, whether that's tech, whether that's retail, but I would say one, research your space. And two, if you are going to do something that's innovative, and that is based in around inclusivity. Understand that, that will take resources, and it will be expensive. And if you're a first mover, you have to get comfortable with the fact that you will put a lot of effort in and somebody else maybe inspired by you. And so protect yourself, the very least protect yourself, whether that's trademarks, sometimes there's certain things you can't protect. But don't be afraid of shouting about your purpose and what you stand for, so that people know who you are and what you are and what your brand is about. But yeah, I would say do the research, and really, really get plugged into your market because if it's about catering to, you know, a specific group of people or area that that's been neglected, the upside of that is they're hungry for it. So your best placed to provide them what they need.

TS: 26:51

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Ade. You can follow her and Nubian Skin on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and more. You'll find all the links in the show notes. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Made For Us. If you liked the show, why not share it with a friend or a colleague and leave a review? I'm Tosin Sulaiman. Talk to you next week.

AH: 27:10

Oh, yes. For the book. Because years and years and years ago, Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth wrote a book called Slay In Your Lane, which I was in and Yomi has just released a book called The List. And it is really really topical about cancel culture and sort of Me Too. So that is my book recommendation. And then song recommendation. I am currently loving Lonely at the Top by Asake. I'm going to go see him in concert on Sunday. I'm so excited. So those are my two recommendations.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai