From car booth to fashion icon •Story of Linda Akrasi Kotey
From the booth of her car, as a budding journalist, Linda Akrasi Kotey pressed through with her passion for fashion, and today she is one of the leading fashion entrepreneurs in the country, operating fashion stores in Accra and Kumasi.
Her journey, thus far, has been both exciting and challenging, and as she describes it, the establishment of her fashion business, LINAK Collections, with a collection of fashion accessories, has been a sterling dream turned reality.
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In the year 2004, she conceived the idea of starting a fashion business that would address the fashion needs of young ladies and women for whichever occasion; to provide suitable outfits for ladies.
“It was quite an ambitious venture; I had to start very small, so I carried the clothes in my car booth to work to sell to colleagues, relative and friends,” she recounts.
As the business grew, so did her passion; “my first shop was a container at Dansoman. I employed a salesgirl to manage the shop during the day while I still juggled my schedules as a parliamentary correspondent. After work, I usually visited the shop in the evening to do some “part-time”, she told The Mirror in an interview on Thursday.
Indeed, Linda started off as a journalist and reported from Parliament. “I really did love journalism. Political reporting was enthralling and I gave it a good shot, but LINAKS was my baby and needed a lot of attention to nourish and grow it”.
LINAK Collections started as a retail shop but presently, has wholesale outlets in the Central Business District of Accra.
In 2012, she finally quit journalism to devote more time to her fledgling business and opened her first major outlet at Dzorwulu in Accra. Years later, she opened another outlet at Dansoman and two other outlets became operational in 2016 in the central business district, Makola (opposite the law school) and another one opposite Georgina stores.
“Our focus has been everything fashion; clothes, bags, shoes and other fashion accessories. We were primarily focussed on imports and we imported from Dubai, UK, US, Turkey, Thailand and China. Then when COVID struck, the dynamics changed; demand for clothes and fashion accessories began to dip while prices began to soar; the climate did not favour the import business as it came with difficult challenges so we had to adapt immediately,” she explained.
In 2020, LINAKS started an indigenous clothing line in response to the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic and now the impressive line of exquisite designs in local and foreign fabrics on the Ghanaian market have won many hearts.
“Customers prefer the locally made dresses to the imported ones. This is primarily because the styles are not produced in large quantities, they are not common on the market, like the ones produced abroad in large quantities,” she states.
She emphasises that one particular interest of her brand has been to also provide quality and affordable clothes for special needs customers like Plus Size women who sometimes struggle to get their best fits on the local market; it has also delivered quite impressively in that regard. “Many plus size women find in our collection, ready-made clothes that fit perfectly and this usually comes as a relief to them.
That has been one of our key objectives with regards to our clothing lines and we are determined to bring broader smiles on their faces,” she assures.
According to Linda, for this Christmas season, the brand is unveiling more contemporary and glamorous designs for ladies of all sizes. She explains further that her dedicated team of designers have been working extremely hard to produce innovative and very fashionable designs that will set new heights in the local fashion industry which will be unveiled this festive season.
What started in a car booth has grown into business with a number of branches
“We are aware of the challenging times but we are still committed to delivering unmatched quality and affordability,” she hinted and added that a lot more should be done to encourage local designers and fashion entrepreneurs to break new grounds and also begin exporting to other countries.
“We started as a solely import business but we also have our eyes firmly set on some exports in future. There is a lot we can offer as Ghanaian fashion entrepreneurs and COVID has taught us that we can indeed break new grounds if we have the right motivation and set our standards high,” she states.
For now, Linda believes in making steady and confident strides into the future, unfazed by the competition posed by cheap imports that continue to flood the Ghanaian market. Ultimately, as she says, “quality is enduring and always wins”.