There is an endless queue at Ashok Sunny’s office in Nairobi. We spend barely half an hour there and the number of people who come to see him is a clear sign that this is a busy man, a busy office.
Most are here to fit suits being stitched for upcoming functions. And they are particular about how they want every detail of their wears made.
“It’s a pretty full day. Sometimes you can leave here even at 11pm or midnight,” he says, revealing the thread of work going on here.
He is in the business of making exquisite high-end menswear, specialising in bespoke and made-to-measure items.
"I’d like to tell young people to be patient. Building your business is not easy. It takes a lot of sacrifice and time."
“We cater for the elite clientele like CEOs, directors, government people, businessmen and ambassadors,” he says.
When he was Deputy President, some of the suits that President William Ruto wore came from Sunny’s enterprise.
Some of Kenya’s celebrities, especially actors, have also donned items from Sunny’s shop. The same case applies to Members of Parliament, expatriates, business executives and owners (among them Manu Chandaria and Joshua Oigara).
“Our clientele is very vast and it’s growing,” says Sunny. “And it’s repeat clientele. That’s the good thing about the business: you get more clients in, and they keep on coming back and bringing more of their friends.”
For a man who started off in Nairobi’s Umoja, losing all his tools twice (in Umoja to thieves and in Nairobi CBD to a fire) before he settled in this location on Koinange Street, Sunny has seen exponential growth in spite of the drawbacks.
He was at university, taking a Bachelor’s course in business and IT (BBIT) when he started pursuing clothe-making as a side hustle.
“I come from a very humble background,” he says. “I needed to find ways to make an extra income. So, using my passion of clothing and finding a way to make proper clothes as I liked, I decided to venture out and do a side hustle, which was basically making clothes for other people and making clothes for myself.”
He reveals how he is a fan of suits and his frustrations when he could not find those that suited his taste.
His apparel business began with buying second-hand clothes in Gikomba — one of the biggest open air markets in Nairobi — adjusting them, then selling them to friends. They liked his collections, says the businessman.
“Then one time I decided to start looking at how to make the clothes from scratch, because when you’re doing mitumba [second-hand clothing], you’re limited by what you get,” says Sunny. “That’s how I started doing bespoke. I started with made-to-measure. Bespoke as a story is evolving up until now. We’re still learning how to do 100 percent bespoke, because now we’re doing semi-bespoke.”
He is always grateful to his mother who offered him the capital off her chama savings.
“She’s been there for the longest time,” he says. “She keeps on giving advice and motivation. All I can say is ‘thank you’”.
To young people who would like to venture into business, he urges patience.
“Most people don’t want to be patient. They want to make money fast and easily. That’s where people disappear very fast, because you don’t create a foundation that will last long. People don’t know about longevity and generational wealth. They just want to make money now, eat today and worry about tomorrow later,” he says. “I’d like to tell young people to be patient. Building your business is not easy. It takes a lot of sacrifice and time.”
His business went professional in 2018 when it was officially registered and recruited more tailors. He started off with a tailor in Umoja.
“Administration is the biggest problem a business has. Even this year, we spent almost 10 months trying to create processes, systems and structures in our business; and we’re still doing it up until now,” says Sunny.
The vision of Ashok Sunny Tailored Limited, he says, is to become “the number one bespoke tailor in East Africa, and then all over the world”.
“Eventually, we want to put Kenya on a map of where they can say there’s Britain, there’s Italy, there’s Hong Kong, and then there’s Nairobi,” he declares.
-Elvis Ondieki