THE ENTREPRENEUR WHO PRODUCED THE MOST EXPENSIVE SUIT IN THE WORLD(lifestyle)

It’s hard to equate the success of this phenomenal brand to the bubbly young man sitting beside me, who could easily pass for one of those hip guys prancing in and out of the Galleria. But this is Alexander Amusu, the entrepreneur and designer who has created the most expensive suit in the world! By age 24, Amusu traded off his ring tones business for a whooping 9 million pounds. That was six years ago. Fast forward to 2011, the Amusu brand has become a world recognized luxury business that caters exclusively for the very few, who find their way to the tip of ‘success hill’. Amusu knows what they want and he is very happy to cater for their desire to stand out of the pack. In comes diamond encrusted and 24-carat gold Blackberry phones. All it takes to make you one of the three people fortunate to own this limited edition diamond Blackberry phone is 150,000 pounds. There are only three of them in the world! I left the meeting wondering if my ship will ever berth, or did I miss the train? Enjoy the read, it might raise similar angst.

 What exactly do you produce? I do luxury things B mobile phones, jewellery and accessories. I started two years ago because; I wanted to do luxury brands. When I started my company in 2004, I was looking for something that had longevity; something a bit more challenging. And, I thought to launch my own luxury brand was certainly more challenging than anything I had ever done before. You see brands like Gucci, Louis VuitTon; they are not owned by any black person. If I could create a luxury brand, at that same level, owned not only by a black person but a Nigerian, it will be phenomenal. So, my goal is to try and fit that link.

What did you start with? I started first with luxury mobile phones, to compete with the likes of Virgin and that went really well within six months of operating. I wanted to elaborate on that and create more products so, I started doing suits, jewellery and accessories. I hope to expand the brand. I will be launching other products as well. It’s like when you go to a luxury shop, you should be able to find everything from head to toe. That’s the idea. The world’s most expensive suit, created by Alexander Amosu, luxury designer to the rich and famous; a one-off creation made from the finest fabrics in the world. This suit is definitely a class apart. Valued at a whopping £70,000 ($103,000), this suit has taken more than 80 hours and 5,000 individual stitches to make it. That is almost, 14 ($21) per stitch! The additions of nine 18-carat gold and pave set diamond buttons have helped this suit attain its expensive price tag. Before you started this company,

 what were you doing? Before then, I had a ring tone company called R&B Ring Tones, which I sold in 2004 for just under 9 million pounds. A couple of years later, I got married, had kids, did a couple of investments, and then I decided I want to buy another business that made sense. That’s how I moved to luxury.

How did you begin in business? I have been in business from the age of 12. I started checking around for jobs so that I can get a bit of pocket money to buy my clothes because, my parents couldn’t afford them. The only way I realized I could buy clothes for myself was by working, saving up my money and then buying these things. By the time I was sixteen, I had done several small end jobs to make money, but that wasn’t satisfying enough. I wanted to find my way up. Rather than working for 10 pounds an hour, I wanted to be making 100 pounds an hour. I had to think of a way of increasing work that can pay me. I decided to start doing business. The first business I did was to hold a private side tournament. We had a big pitch in school. I approached the head mistress and asked for permission to use the pitch to organize a football tournament to find the best football team. I then went to the canteen and asked them for refreshments. Rather than throw the left over away, I asked to take them to the pitch. They said no problem. I then went to the library and designed a flier announcing the tournament. I charged 5pounds per person. I then went round the school giving to every single person, telling them, ALook, we are looking to find the best players in school. By the time I knew it, I had about eleven teams B all wanted to play. And, all put in money to it at five pounds per head. At the end of the tournament, I walked away with 1,200 pounds, just from doing the tournament. When I went to college at 17, I began to do different tournaments: table tennis, basket ball and made money. We had a big hall in school and I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a Valentine ball? So, I did the same thing. I went to the head master there and asked for permission. I charged 10 pounds per head. I made about 3,000pounds. From Valentine, I did Easter, Christmas and made some more money. When I was 18, my aunt B who was heavily pregnant B asked me to clean her house. I cleaned the house and at the end, she paid me twenty pounds. I realized that because of her condition, she couldn’t do the work herself; therefore, she needed help. I thought, what would happen if I could find out how many women in the UK were pregnant and needed someone to clean their houses. So, I went on the computer, set up a cleaning agency website for women who were heavily pregnant or, people who were too busy, and needed someone to clean their homes. Five minutes after, I got a call from a lady who had a two-month old baby and four-year old child. She needed someone to clean (her home). That was my first contract. From then, I had about eleven contracts while studying in the university. For the first six months, I did the cleaning myself but it got to a stage, it started affecting my studies. So, I went to a job centre to find cleaners. I got two people who went out to do cleaning for me. They would clean for ten pounds and I would charge twenty pounds. I did that for a little while. I was earning about 2,000 pounds a month. I did that for a couple of years before I landed onto the ring tone business.

 How did that start? The only reason I landed in the ring tone business was because, I bought my first mobile phone and on the composer function on the phone, you This BlackBerry costs ,150,000 (US$240,000). Amosu et al apparently spent 350 hours building the custom Curve, and it’s made of solid 18-carat yellow gold and encrusted with 4,459 brilliant cut diamonds (weighing 28.43 carats), according to the company. The device is a limited edition. Amosu plans to sell only three, one of which has already been purchased by a mysterious "client in the Middle East.” press 123, and it goes Adoremi. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could listen to music in the background and see if I could create a song using the key pad. At that time, I was studying sound engineering; we were using lots of keyboards to play music. So, I did two hours experiment and created what is known now as ring tone. I went to the university to do some research and found out that there were two companies that did ring tones. I didn’t really think much of it and then my brother asked me for the ring tone on his phone. We went to school the next day, played it for his friends and everybody loved it. That day, 21 people came back to my mum’s house to say they wanted it. So, like an entrepreneur, I asked them to pay one pound each and they were all happy to pay. So, I made 21 pounds and I thought this could be something interesting. As I was doing my research, I realized that nobody was focusing on urban R&B, hip hop or anything to do with black music. It was more pop and rock. So, I decided to launch what is now known as R&B Ring Tones. Within two months of launching, I made enough money to have two offices east Eaton and employ 21 staff. Their age group was between 16 (the youngest) and me, at that time, 24. Within a year, I got a call from my accountant to say we just turned over 1.5 million pounds. Within two years, we had a turn over of 6.6 million pounds. In 2004, I sold the business for 9 million pounds. So, thats like a rundown of how I started. Obviously now, the luxury brand is my focal point and I am pushing that. For now, I am focusing on Africa. I want to do something at home. For me, its like being successful there; it is great, but you are not as successful until you have done something in your own country. So, I decided to buy the rights of OK Magazine. No kidding? No, I am serious. You are joking, right? No, I am serious. You are bringing ‘Ok Magazine’ to Nigeria?

 When are you going to start publishing? I havent decided yet. I am, at the moment, trying to see how it will work. I am not in a hurry. When you want to start a business like this, you have to understand the market first. You cant just jump into the market. For me, the first thing was to own the rights. Now that I own it, I can worry about how to launch it. Buying it is the easy part; the hardest part is to make it work. I am not going to rush it. I am going to take my time, look at the market and see what I am going to do.

 Why a magazine? It is part of my strategy. I own a luxury brand and I want to penetrate the luxury market with my brand. Any brand which wants to launch in any country, the first thing its going to need is advertising. So, to me, its a perfect solution. I can own my own media, reaching the high end community that I am going to be targeting and, putting my own adverts in there. There is no better solution; at the same time get somebody else to pay for the magazine to run. Its not rocket science, its simple. I have noticed that everyone in the media community here seems to have a little bit of edge. I thought, maybe that might be a good start for me to come into the market with.

Where are your parents and what are they saying to you now? My parents are in the UK. My dad is from Ibadan while mum is from Ikorodu. My mum doesnt really say anything, because I have been doing business right from when I was young and she has always supported me. She is a proud mum, I guess. My father was the one who wanted me to be an accountant or a lawyer. Even when I was going to do the ring tone business, I told him I was going to take a year off school, he was like you want to waste your life playing with mobile phones. But, if you ask my dad now, he will tell you he didnt say that.

What is the motivation that led you to keep goingrom one business to another? It wasnt so much as an ambition; it was just not wanting to be broke. We live in a council estate, where my grandmother lived in one room, my mum lived in the other and me and my brother will sleep on the floor in the second room. That’s how we lived. For me, there was no luxury. When I went to school especially, I was 12, the kids in school would pick at me, because one, I had a very strong accent because I just came from Nigeria. And also, the clothes I wore didnt quite fit in with them. So, I wasn’t communicating. What I realized was that the kids that had everything B clothes, accessories etc, were the most popular in school. For me, I wanted to fit in. So, I would say the motivation that I had was really to fit in. I needed to buy clothes that would represent what they understood. Once I got a sense of that, I realized this was what I had to do. Its not that I wanted to be Bill Gates or anything like that. If I do great or if I dont, not really my motivation. It’s always good not to be broke. It’s always good to push myself to the next level. I don’t want to do the same thing as everybody else. I want to do things different and bigger than everybody else.

 Each time you start a project, how did you know it would succeed? You know, I started from a very early age. I have learnt how to lose money, how to make money, how to really have an understanding of what works and what doesnt work. It doesnt mean I get it right all the time. But, 90% of the time, I have got a sure bet. I always say to people, if you are very young B say at 4 B and you have ambition to become the world champion, you have to train from a very young age. You have to go through all the mistakes at a young age. You have to train and train. There is a process and through that process, you are going to fall, get up again and develop yourself in a way so that when you are 20 B 21, you can compete at a high level because you know that you have the know-how. I have a feeling, it is the same with business. You chose to cater to only those at the peak. Why? You didn’t start from the peak. Absolutely, like I said, it is a process and understanding of business. Having a good understanding of selling a million ring tones at 3 pounds a piece, in order for me to make 3 million pounds, you have to do more work to reach a higher concentration of people to make the same amount of money. For example, I make the world’s most expensive suit which costs 70,000 pounds. I sold one suit, one person, not even up to an hour’s conversation (and) 70,000 pounds exchange. Now, base that with somebody else who sells a 400-pound suit. How many suits will they have to make, how many people will they have to see, how many hours a day will they have to speak to those different people to make the same amount of money that I made in one hour, speaking to one person? I dont want the headache. I want to deal with somebody who will give me that money there and then.

 What did you put into the 70,000 pounds suit that makes it worth the price? The suit is made of three of the rarest fabrics in the world. Its made of Vicuna wool, which can only shorn once in three years; South Americas Camel Qiviuk wool; and, Artic muskox. The buttons are made of 18 carat gold; the cuffs are diamonds. It comes with a 24 hours PA, concierge services in 24 countries around the world. It also gives you three free private flight tickets to anywhere in the world. So, its a luxury suit. For me, when I said I wanted to make a suit, I didnt want to make a suit like anybody else. There was no point. Its like having so many fish in the ocean; it doesnt make any sense. So, if I want to really stand out from everybody else, I want to make something that is completely unique and makes me stand out. And, making the Rolls Royce of the suit industry B that is what I consider myself as B that means I have separated myself from the crowd. That is important.

 So, how many suits do you sell? Is it the same design or, do you come up with different styles? We come up with different designs. We definitely wont be selling 70,000 pounds every single time. My range starts from 2,500 pounds to the most expensive which is 70,000 pounds. The average price of my suits is about 40,000 pounds.

When did you launch these suits? I launched it last year April. I got global world coverage of it. Its fine; its just a new era. The truth is that I dont think I have even peaked yet. I am just a new designer coming out, and I am building my reputation. You know, with luxury brands, it takes 15-20 years to establish them as a luxury brand. But here I am trying to achieve that within ten years. Its not easy but I will give it a go.