Doyinmola Olajoye,is a Nigerian Gen Z entrepreneur, humanitarian(the founder of Orange Humanity project),Fashion Model, Beauty Queen and Creative Director at Dhoney Adire and Crafts Nigeria. The 24-year old entrepreneur is an embodiment of resilience and hardwork, and it is no wonder that she Winner of SME100Africa 25 under 25 awards 2021,fashion category.
Doyinmola was born on September 5 1998 in Ondo state, Nigeria. She attended Foremost Girl’s only secondary school, St Louis Ondo state, after which she proceeded to the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo state where she bagged a degree in Computer science.
Teenage model and sociopreneur
Doyinmola Olajoye started her career as a pageant and runway model at a very tender age. She got into the university at age 17 and joined a modeling agency who groomed her and she started gaining limelight. While in that, she wanted to see young girls her age grow and expand and that birthed her foundation, Orange Humanity Project at age 19. The project was set up to empower and inspire young people to make use of their skills and talents to pursue greatness. She set her passion towards it and gathered secondary school girls, trained them with the help of her parents and keynote speakers. But then, she had a constraint – she lacked adequate funding to keep the project running.
This led her to learn a craft, as she wanted to be financially independent and also see life transformed. She chose to learn Adire because of her interest in the promotion of African Culture, beauty and fashion. Olajoye noted in one of her interviews that she believed strongly in recycling. One can safely assume that her career in modelling also made fashion and beauty a safe space too launch a business.
“Aside from financial freedom, and my interest in fashion and beauty, I also wanted to learn Adire because I thought of the harm that the careless disposal of clothings will cost on our health and as a nation. I wanted to make abandoned clothes reusable and adorable again by creating beautiful prints and patterns” she said.
In 2018 April, she started the business and named it DHONEY ADIRE – a business that revamps old, dim and abandoned clothes, remaking them into beautiful pieces with the local art Adire. She started offering masterclasses on Adire making to young and old and organized trainings like, Adire Revamp Bootcamp, Kiddies summer time with Dhoney, 1:1 Masterclass, Train with Dhoney.
As the business grew and thrived, the number of trainees also increased so that in time, she had many independent people who had passed through her training.
Recognitions
Doyinmola has proven over the years that she is resilient, smart and hardworking and her awards stands as evidence.
“My dream is to see a world that embraces African Adire, while curbing the harm throwing out old clothes can cause to humans” she says.
She contested and emerged as the 13th Miss Ekimogun beauty pageant 2021, won the semi-finalist business cup lagos, held at Entrepreneurship Development Center, Lagos Business School 2021. Olajoye also won the SME100Africa 25 under 25 awards 2021, Fashion category. She was nominated for ELOY Award Young Entrepreneur of the year and I was the Winner of the God’s Chamber Business Bootcamp Pitch competition and beneficiary of the grant awarded.
In 2022, “Dhoney Adire” founded by Doyinmola, won the Export Expansion Facility Programme (EEFP) grant – a flagship project of the Nigerian Export Promotional Council (NEPC) –, a 360 community for creative entrepreneurs among other nominations.
Doyinmola is an entrepreneur to look out for in the fashion space and modeling world as she keeps breaking barriers, winning year in and out, building sustainable business and social networking.
