Maureen Ayité is a young entrepreneur and owner of one of the biggest fashion brands in Africa: Nanawax. She is a businesswoman with formidable real estate skills and a sure taste for beautiful things. Her success in her ventures have made her a true influencer, accumulating thousands of followers on Instagram. The young woman simply seems to have been created to turn everything she touches into gold. Behind Maureen's successes lies the journey of a thirty-something who has gradually climbed the ladder, making sacrifices when necessary. Focus on Maureen Ayité, one of the most influential African entrepreneurs of her generation.
Maureen Ayité and the beginnings of Nanawax
Maureen was born in March 1988 in Levallois-Perret, France. She grew up and studied in Côte d'Ivoire and Benin. Her higher education took place in France, where she obtained a degree in Foreign Languages, Literature & Civilisations. At the time, the young woman did not envisage a career in the fashion industry. When the adventure that has now led to the Nanawax empire began, her goal was just to get the money to travel to Bulgaria to do her internship at the school for the deaf.
Maureen is the granddaughter of a loincloth seller. It was this activity that enabled her grandmother to gain financial stability and independence. This probably awakened Maureen's love of the loincloth. As a teenager, Maureen would collect scraps of her grandmother's fabric and have them made into accessories. In class, these stylish little pieces were all the rage and her classmates kept asking her how they could get them. She would tell them that she had them made for herself.
As soon as she returned to Paris in 2008, Maureen felt the need to create a Facebook group where she would post photos of loincloth outfits that she found very beautiful. Sometimes, she would share photos of herself wearing her own creations. All this was done anonymously, with her face hidden. Requests from Internet users who wanted her to reproduce the models they liked came in. Again, her intention was not to sell, but rather to share her passion for fashion and the loincloth in particular. Nevertheless, this Facebook group eventually became a real channel through which she launched her first private sale, always with the aim of getting the money for her trip to Bulgaria.
Since she couldn't sew, she made the accessories and had the models sewn by professionals. Then she posted a little message on her group: "Come and buy. I'm having a little private sale at a friend's house. . This was a real revelation for the student. She had expected to receive a maximum of ten people, but found herself managing two hundred customers. It was then that she realised that there was a real market for her creations. Maureen called the deaf school and asked that her internship be postponed for a few months so that she could make more money. Needless to say, from one private sale to the next, Maureen never did the internship again.
Resilience, sacrifice, hard work: the ingredients for lasting success
No empire is built without sacrifice, and Maureen Ayité is not one to deny it. Today, she is the owner of seven Nanawax shops in West Africa. She has prestigious clients from all over the world in her address book. Her empire also extends to real estate. But all this has not been without obstacles, which she has overcome with brio.
After having multiplied private sales in France and Abidjan, Maureen returned to Cotonou and occupied her mother's back shop to sell her articles. She still had no intention of making it a permanent activity, but faced with the high demand and the influx of customers, she began to see things differently. It was the time of customisation: Maureen bought ready-to-wear clothes and skilfully combined them with loincloths, and did not yet have a brand name. Then, when the time came to become professional, the young entrepreneur declared her activity to the Beninese authorities and started looking for better materials. Her goal is to build a solid business that lasts. And her customers are receptive. Stars who want to wear her creations contact her on social networks. This is the beginning of a phenomenal success!
Soon, thanks to her creativity and good taste, Maureen Ayité became a true stylist and explored her other passions, real estate and interior design. In France, she was already subletting her flat during her travels, long before the advent of Airbnb. She is now back to this activity in Benin, decorating and subletting beautiful flats. Her first real estate purchase was a piece of land on which she built a party hall. This was eventually closed down by the Beninese state and Maureen was never compensated. How does one recover when one loses more than 100 million CFA francs, when such a large investment goes up in smoke? Well, when your name is Maureen Ayité, you show resilience, you establish new strategies and you move forward.
So she moved to the Ivory Coast for good and lived in the back room of her Abidjan shop. She tightens her belt and invests in buying and renovating flats. She is learning a lot about real estate in Africa and the difficulties associated with it. Despite delivery delays, incompetent workers and problems with construction companies, the persevering businesswoman achieves her goals. Her rigour, her outspokenness and her dynamism make her the proud owner of seven flats, two villas and a penthouse in Côte d'Ivoire.
And while she struggles to prosper in real estate, two major textile brands are suing her: Vlisco and Uniwax. She is allegedly using loincloth designs that belong to them and to which they have rights. The plaintiffs were unable to prove their rights to the designs seized in her shop. Maureen won the case and was able to concentrate fully on her various activities.
Woman of business and influence
Maureen Ayité is very active on social networks, especially on Instagram, where she has more than 100,000 followers, and this is due to the authentic storytelling she uses on a daily basis. She shares anecdotes and lets her followers experience her daily adventures. There is always something to learn from the stories of the Franco-Beninese entrepreneur that her followers love.
And her influence doesn't just stop at the Internet. In 2015, she was listed as one of the 30 up-and-coming talents in Forbes Africa magazine. She is also one of the African designers whose work was featured on Beyoncé's 2019 album The Lion King. Maureen is also the one who welcomes famous personalities and first ladies who want to shop at Nanawax themselves to her boutiques.
Her fame is now undeniable. And as she likes to point out: all this was done without inheritance or bank loans.
In December 2022, the talented entrepreneur was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, in Abidjan for her contribution to entrepreneurship and fashion.
Discovering the story of Maureen Ayité is an exercise that all young Africans should undertake. Her story is proof that you can succeed in Africa, that you can do well in Africa and that you can make it in Africa and around the world. His story is inspiring and teaches us that as long as you have the will, you can do anything.
