This is the story of a popular boutique in Lagos that has been the go-to-boutique for celebrity ladies for the past 25 years. It’s called Kasabella Boutique. Slim built Kemi Shodipo is the beautiful lady behind Kasabella Boutique in Surulere, Lagos. The big news is that Kasabella Boutique is 25. She celebrated the 25th Anniversary of her shop a few months back, by sharing her success story.
In it, she revealed how she started life quite well, many years ago with top grades, all through her schooling periods, how she became a Senior Prefect (Girl) at the age of 23 and then unfortunately by the age of 25+ she became a widow. She was also at that time pregnant with her 2nd child when her husband died, meaning she was a pregnant widow. “It was very tough and very lonely”, she revealed.
“And so then I gave birth to the vision of Kasabella Boutiques from my love for Shoes….simply turned into a passion…talk about making lemonades out of lemons.”
“And so the journey started just like that, day by day, month by month, year by year. Talk about passion, ruggedness, determination, focus, integrity, patience, lot of patience, from seeing seeds planted, growing into fruits ready for harvest, customer relations, building relationships, dealing with finance, banks, supplies, forex of which has moved like 100 times or more in the last 25 years, the uncertainity of certain times and seasons, holding on to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, prayer (plenty of it) If you can’t go diabolical or be running from pillar to post looking for prosperity where there is nothing, but pure wickedness, import duties, bills, bills, bills & plenty of them, Rates etc, dealing with landlords where there are multiple stones, travelling, sourcing for good premium quality at the same time trying not to break the bank”.
She wrote about what it takes to do business in the midst of acidic competition and a lot of wickedness in our society, dealing with stress, acidic relationships, being a single parent, being a mother & father to a few Beautiful Damsels, paying school fees, dealing with disoragent, bad economy which is turn affects people generally. I could go on and on. Bad loans, bad debts. In those early days, we suffered a lot from bad transactions. We are wiser now, seeing to the Ministry of Help, playing my role as a daughter of Zion, the pursuit of excellence. The list is endless..”
“But in all of this, I am grateful and very thankful. Yes very thankful to God that we have come this far. It is the Passion & Joy we derive in beautifying our beautiful customers that have kept us going, the joy we derive when our customers buy beautiful pieces, premium quality that they use and use and use for years. And they keep coming back to us…Nothing like a happy satisfied customer…”
“We are soo thankful and grateful to God for having brought us this far…The Bible says unless the Lord builds the house the labourers laboureth in vain. He has been our Refuge, our Anchor, our Banner, our hiding place in times of trouble, our sufficiency, our provider, our shield, our fortress, our foundation, our all in all…”
“We are so thankful to you all our beautiful wonderful customers who have at one time or the other been through our stores at different locations at different times trusting in our name and brand”.
