By Katlego Sekhu
Nicole Ncube is a 22-year-old designer and the founder of the popular luxury streetwear brand, Ascend Label.
She joins Tbose on My Top 10 at 10 to chat about her love for fashion and growing her business from scratch.
Before the success of Ascend, Nicole had dreams of becoming a model.
“Initially, I wanted to do modeling, I’ve always had a love for fashion. I think at the time I just didn’t have my hands on what exactly it is that I wanted to do. I would always bump into people asking me If I model.”
Nicole reached out to modeling agencies but her attempts were unsuccessful.
“I started applying to modeling agencies and I just never got accepted. Some told me that I was short, some told me that my social media following is not big enough. I got into the love of tattoos and someone told me that they don’t take people with tattoos,” she tells Tbose.
This frustrated Nicole and steered her in the direction of fashion.
“That frustrated me to the core and I started looking into fashion and I realised I was good at drawing when I was in school so I started sketching but I didn’t have the capital to get into designing.
To get started, she reached out to a renowned designer to show her the ropes and that proved to be a wise decision.
“I needed to find a way to get someone who would mentor me. I was on social media and I bumped into Inga and I Dm’d him and he was happy to take mee on. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here. He always tells me that I need to be hands-on with everything,” she said.
Watch Nicole Ncube’s full interview with Tbose on My Top 10 at 10 below.
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