Why We Love: Temi Olanrewaju, CEO Reva Stryder
For women like Temi Olanrewaju, instead of putting out the burning flames of passion, she fans it.
Temi is the Founder of luxury female footwear brand, Reva Stryder – the brand crafted to bridge the gap between women and affordable stylish footwear. Her objective is to provide women with a blend of style, affordability and comfort that they can wear all day long.
But before the seeming feelings of assurance and certainty that her brand now enjoys, there were days of uncertainty, rejection and answerless questions.
Temi Olanrewaju started her career in the Corporate Banking world as an Executive Trainee. It was during this time that she recognized the wide gap for footwear brands in Nigeria in comparison to its apparel counterpart. In recognizing an opportunity, Temi decided to pursue her passion to see Nigeria’s first luxury footwear brand come to life, with no financial backing. She spent the last months of 2016 studying footwear locally, creating a business plan and pitching her business idea from one potential investor to another (while still working her day job at the bank). Her request was rather herculean – Not only was she asking for
funds to start the business, she was asking for funds to attend one of Italy’s finest footwear luxury academies.
With 8 rejections under her belt, Temi persisted and got her ‘yes’ at the age of 24. It was after this that she made her first entry into the luxury footwear industry world – earning 2 professional degrees as a certified Footwear Designer and Footwear Pattern Engineer at Arsutoria Srl, the Milan-based luxury footwear academy between 2017/18’. In the months to follow she did what no other African brand had been able to – she convinced Azzedine Alaia’s foremost footwear manufacturers in Italy to produce for her new brand, without a third party agent. The factory is
currently home to luxury brands at the top of Haute Couture and Prêt-à-Porter such as Gianvito Rossi, Gucci, Azzedine Alaia, Versace, Cesare Paccioti, Midnight Zero – Zero, Tommy Hilfiger and Giambattista Valli.
This made Reva Stryder the first African brand to produce her shoes with the 60 year old Factory in Italy.
Fast-forward to 2019, Temi Olanrewaju has a debut capsule collection, “Forever Reva”, that she’s designed “to make everyday lifestyle shoes as elegant and breathtaking as red carpet shoes but still extremely comfortable.”
Within a span on 4 months, Reva Stryder has built a client-base of professional women like Mrs Adaeze Udensi (ED, Titan Trust Bank), Lara Olaniran (CEO, Zone 4 Energy), Hon. Toke Benson (Commissioner, Housing), Powede Awujo (Pilot, Influencer) & more. And has her sights set on taking up space as an African luxury footwear brand to watch.
To see how passion turns becomes reality, see how the Reva Stryder team created their Lady Flora Pumps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH91Jx_8y_k{54d2fcdcd494adb6982253be6fe8d5492e5f586157f419110131714f9092ec60}MCEPASTEBIN{54d2fcdcd494adb6982253be6fe8d5492e5f586157f419110131714f9092ec60}
We are so inspired by her story – it makes us want to work harder. Tell us, what was the most inspiring part of Temi Olanrewaju and her fashion brand’s story for you?
To order or find out more on Reva Stryder, please visit www.revastryder.com / Call 08084844638 of Follow @RevaStryder on social media.
