Knitting has a long and fascinating history that originated in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean around the 11th or 12th century. The earliest knitted artifacts are Egyptian socks from that era. Knitting then spread to Europe, where male guilds used it to make religious garments. This is the Lade Story, that has taken handmade craft to a whole new Level

Exclusive Interview with Lade

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Tell Us About Yourself and the Brand

My name is Bolade Mayowa Kolade, A Native of Ekiti State, I Studied Architecture in Federal University of technology Akure and the Founder/CEO of HookedByLade

HookedByLade was born out of Passion for Handmade Brand. This Passion has been scaled up through the use of Social Media giving us access to over a Million followers and Acceptability across Multiple Social Media Platforms. We are continually growing in our customer base, we hope to evolve into a Luxury hand made brand in the nearest future. I need to mention that sustainability is important to "Hooked By Lade" which is why the new stylish innovative designs by Lade; we use special yarns that would have otherwise gone into landfills especially for fast fashion industry, they are called T-Shirt Yarns. These are sustainable ecofriendly materials.

How did it all began

It started at a young age (Between 9-10). I Used to see a girl in my church knit with broom sticks, I got interested, learned and got broom sticks of mine and started knitting and fortunately for me, my parents supported, they saw the interest and they started getting me different yarns and of course I upgraded my tools.

In between all that life happened, I stopped knitting and I went to school to study architecture and after graduation, during my service year 2016/2017 in a village; maybe because of the quietness of the environment where I was serving I picked up knitting again.

I started teaching children. I'd teach Geography during the day and teach crochet in the evening. This brought back the interest.

What is the Structure behind the Brand Marketing

Before Crochet I used to be a freelancer, I create white board animation and edit videos out from a café. The café became an office space for me and from there I got drawn to a TikTok Video and then it occurred to me that this is an avenue to have people see my works globally, so I started doing TikTok Videos where I take the audience on the processes of making a product and I think that's where I got it right. So my marketing has been on Tiktok before moving to other social platforms.

After school, I started working with a flooring construction company and after quitting I started working as a free lancer and somehow that's where the structure came from because of my background in architecture

I design with the principles of architecture, I design with structural stability, I design with functionality; A bag should function as a bag, a dress should function as a dress; except you want to intentionally do something deferent, which is allowed and of course esthetics are key for the brand

so these are part of the structure behind by Lade. Also with my background in Video editing it was easy to put out contents that is easy to understand and appealing while at it.

What is the Future Plans for HookedByLade

I want to see people take hand-made craft seriously, just same way we take conventional education seriously, Hooked by LADE would like to be a place where dreams do come true, where people could apply for a job gain meaningful employment, creating fashion master piece with their hands. We want to also empower people so as they can also own their own brand. This is going to happen in the near future.

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Follow Lade of Social Media

Follow the Lade Brand on Instagram: @HOOKEDBYLADE