Chief Zainab Abah Folawiyo is an Award-winning fashion designer. She was born on July 22, 1942.
As at 2022, she’s 80-year-old.
She is one of the iconic names that headlined the Nigerian fashion industry back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, spearheading a fashion revolution that embraced the beauty of our local Ankara fabric that has, today, become a favourite of all.
Family
Sisi Abah as she is fondly called grew up in Ghana, a West African country, neighbour to Nigeria.
Her parents are not rich but are very comfortable and sober. Her mother is from Ghana and most of her family still resides in the country.
In an interview, she noted; “My family members are in Ghana. I was brought up in Ghana. My family members are there. I am partly Nigerian and partly Ghana”.
Education
She had her education both in Nigeria and Ghana.
Husband and Children
She had been married three times. Sisi Abah once stated that “she is always married”.
According to her; “I have had like three marriages in my life. I don’t play around. I am always a settled person. When I meet somebody and he wants to marry me, then we get married and stay together. When we break up, another one is on the way getting married to me. I have never been alone. I am always married.”
She has only one son, Segun Awolowo Jr. fathered by Segun Awolowo (late), son of late Obafemi Awolowo.
How Sisi Abah (Zainab Folawiyo) met Segun Awolowo’s father
Zainab Folawiyo clarified she was never married to Segun and therefore rumours of the Awolowo’s family being against their marriage is false.
“No, no, no. It is not true at all. Segun and I weren’t married. When he came from London at the time his father was in jail, he and his lawyer from London were going to court every day. That was when I met him. We were together. I knew his sister very well. I wasn’t close to the father and the mother, but I knew the sister that followed him.”
“The sister was very close to me and whenever I went to Ikenne, we were all together and we played around. That was when I got pregnant, and two months before I had my son, he died. So we couldn’t do anything. Whatever he wanted to do with me he couldn’t do because he had a big problem on his chest,” she said in an interview with The Nation.
After the death of Segun Awolowo, she got married to Lagun Adesanya who is now a Celestial pastor; they later got divorced.
Career
She founded Labanella Creations between 1978 and 1981.
The outfit, one of the foremost and most successful in the country, became a pacesetter and has participated in fashion shows in some of the world’s major fashion capitals, such as London, Paris and New York.
In 1986, the fashion outfit staged shows in many West African countries in a project known as “Labanella Goes Ecowest”.
Narrating her rise to fame, she said in an interview; “I had a big factory, a boutique in Surulere and they all know me. I was the first Daily Times Designer of the Year. I won that one many, many years ago the first time in history that they did it. I also won the best designer competition in Ghana.”
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