Fashion Design and a Fresh Start: Adele Ngoy

She is the founder and president of Women United Around the World and also owner of Antoine's Taylor Shop in Portland, Maine. And also she is a teacher and instructor of sewing, which is very exciting. So I'm excited to talk to you today. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here with you. Lisa, I know you've had a lot of people interested in the work that you're doing in Portland. You've touched a lot of different people's lives since you've been here. You came here in the year 2000. Yes. I arrived here in the year 2000, July, 2000. And what was the connection to Portland? Portland. I didn't know Portland. I never know from back home, I never hear about Maine, but before I came, I came as a refugee and then as a refugee, when you leave your country you go, you have to go stay to a different country from your origin country of birth. And then I went to Cameroon with the help of, I forget the organization name, but we stayed there, HIS, I forget the name of the organization. We stay at the refugee camp in Cameroon for eight months. While you're there, you go through different interview, they ask you, they have to know you before they bring you to America and they have to know your skill. They have to know your background and your favorite place to live and all those questions. Through that process I asked them, I came with three young children. They're so young. I was scared to come to America by myself, single mother with three kids and I say I would like to go live in a small place where there's no crime. It's quiet, a safe place to raise kids end up to, they'll try to convince me to go to Chicago or New York because they found already job for me there as a fashion designer and I was so scared. I said, I don't want to go to a big city. I choose to fund for me a small city where I can raise my kid. The true Portland Maine for me and since then I don't regret to be in How old were your children when you were leaving your country and you came from originally the country you came from the public democratic of Congo? My oldest was six, my second one was four, and my youngest, my boy, the day we arrived the next day was his birthday. Two. He was two. So you had young children when you left where you were originally from and you stayed in Cameroon for eight months, with these young children and then you brought them all the way to Portland, I don't even know. I can't imagine how we did that because it was so stressed, so scary and so you don't know where you're going. You don't know what can happen and the kid was so frustrated. They were telling me, it's your fault why we are here. They don't understand. They keep telling me we have to go back home and the condition they're living, why we have to live in this condition, why don't we go home? Is our asking those random question, where's our driver? Where is this? Where is the, I say, you just be patient. We're going somewhere. It's just because of the ethnic war in the country. We had to leave. Yeah, it was very challenging and arriving here with lack of language, I didn't know any word in English. I would speak only French and adult dialect from my country and the kids also when we arrived, they're so frustrated because they couldn't express themself. They go to school, they start crying. They say, we don't want to stay here, we want to go back home. They thought it was my fault I did that. They didn't understand until later on. I think about that my children are also older now and just having three young children all at the same time and you were a single parent. Single parent. Raising them and just start with that. That is so challenging. But then to have to uproot your everybody, your children yourself and come to a completely different place, I mean the level of strength you must have had to be able to do that. I don't know how I did that. Like I said before, I think it's just by the grace of God, I was just praying every day. In some point a year later I went back to immigration office and I told them, I want to go back. Can you please send me back my country because I can't take this anymore. It was so hard, it so challenging. I say, I can't take this. I have to go back. Luckily I wish I can meet that lady one more time. The lady, the immigration officer, she left the desk come and give me a big hug and she say, do this for your kids, not for you. Think about this kid and you're going to do it. You can do it. I was crying, sobbing and left there. I was like, okay, now I need to try to make a decision. I have just to be taking care of the kid. Forget about Adele, forget about fashion design, about all this big dream. Just be a mother taking care of the kids. I left there and then I continued. I found a job. I was working as a seamstress somewhere and then just do the routine, bring them to school. But I always wanted the best for my kids because I think I got the best education back from home and for me it was just the best education for my kid from elementary school. I put them in private school. I was working to pay school for them. I didn't have nothing else. Just all the money is just food, pay rent to pay school for the kids. They all went to Cathedral for the clothes and my oldest went to Mcauley. For Mcauley, she got a scholarship. It was this generous woman who pay school for her for four years in Mcauley because she had a good grade and then the picker, she was paying school for her and my second daughter went to Walnut Hill. It's a private performance art school and my son went to Cheverus because my dream was just to give them the best I could and I was doing that every day knowing I don't know what going to happen but just walking by every day. But I was lucky to meet so many people of Maine. Maine people, they're good people, very good people. I had a lot of support from a friend I met through school for kids through work. I had so many good friend, very supportive. It seems like your children would end up needing to be pretty independent and also strong themselves because it sounds like you probably had to work a lot of hours in order to pay for private schools. And you're all coming in learning a lot of things all at the same time. Do you feel like as a result of them having to work through challenges, learning a new language, being in a new place, do you think that that has impacted them now that they are adults? Yes, definitely impacted their life now even more now being adult impact them very much because, I feel like they didn't grow up like a regular kid in America. Their life was more challenging. It impact them in their life. Today they're doing good for themselves but still they have a lot of, they used to ask themselves a lot of question because they didn't understand why the situation they been through. Yeah, it's really impact them and they're still challenging for them to fund themselves. They're still looking for themself. Until now it's very challenging. I can understand that. That would be hard. Yeah, it's very hard. Yeah, it's very hard. But I always take the positive side of everything. I know it was a lot of challenging, a lot of negative, but I'm so thankful they got a good education and they're in a safe place that I am thankful for that. Why did you originally go into fashion design? When I was young, I didn't think about, I didn't want to do fashion design. I was like, I want to be a doctor as a young, until I was a teenager, in my head I said, I'm going to be a doctor and then my dad, he passed away years ago. He was an artist. As an artist I don't know what he saw in me. He pushed me to go to fashion school and for me that time I was like, I'm too smart to go to a fashion school. I thought if you go to fashion school, you just have to make stuff with your hand. You don't have to be thinking too much. You're not smart. And I was so upset I didn't like it in the beginning and then he play with my mind. He say, okay, you just go to this school this year and then next year we are going to try to register you to a different school because back home you start your option, whatever you're going to do in life in high school, that's how I went to fashion school. The first year, the first month I didn't talk to anybody in the class, even though the teacher was just, I didn't want to deal with any because I didn't like it. I feel like this is too bad for me. I don't want to be here. But every day I go home he encourage me, "it's going to be fine. Just try." And then after a while as a student in the class I have just to do what they ask me to do and slowly I start feeling like I like it and everything we're doing, I was the best. I was doing that better than everybody sometimes and that I started, I did my first year. At the end of the year I start making stuff. Everything they taught us in the class to do, I duplicate them at home and then that's how I end up do that and then I love it so much until I went, I finished high school and I went to college for fashion design and I love it. I don't regret, thanks to my father who knew, I don't know. Maybe as a parent parents sometime they know us better than ourself. Yeah, I think he knew. He see something in me, which I didn't know myself. As you're coming to Maine with this background in fashion design where they offered, you could have gone to Chicago or New York and I know New York is known to be a fashion center. How did you feel about bringing your fashion design background to a place like Portland, Maine, which isn't known to be a fashion design center? That was my big, big challenge because I have this, I mean America, I didn't know everywhere is the same, have to dress up, but I come to realize man, it's very laid back. It's low key. Dressing is not really the priority and that for many years I have to observe, I have to try to find my ways, what to do. I open a shop. I was working first somewhere as a seamstress and then I was tired of that, that I could do better and then I opened a small shop on Brighton Avenue as I started designing things, but I realized it's not the culture in Maine, it was challenging. And then a few years later I have to close and sometime even I'll tell people I make this fleece jacket because I try to create something to adapt for the climate for Maine. I come off this idea to make the fleece jacket very fashionable and then I'll be wearing them somewhere and everybody loved them. We love your jacket and they'll say, I made it. They look me like I'm crazy. They don't get it because how come you can make this? They don't understand it. And I stayed for with that store for a little bit while and then the recession came the country, everything was, the economy was bad. I have to close. I went back to my previous job. This time I went back as a manager for the department of alteration and that was good for me. I went there and I said, I'm going to be here just for a few years because in my head I will like to have something for myself. And that's how I was there for five years as a manager, I learned a lot. Even when I had my store, people used to make comments, say she does a very good service. You want anything to be made is perfect, but customer service, she doesn't know much about that. Of course I didn't know how to manage customer service in America and that was a very good thing for me to go back as a manager for those five years. It helped me a lot to know how to do customer service and to deal with how to manage staff, how to manage people you work with and to understand better the American culture. Women especially working with wedding gown. It was a bridal shop, a big bridal shop and yeah, I learned a lot. That was a very good thing for me to go back there as a manager. It prepare me to become who I am today. So you now are the founder and president of Women United around the World and you own Antoine's Taylor Shop. Tell me about each of those different roles. When I left the place I was working and then that time the peice, I forget when I came here, I came myself with my kids but the fear to be myself and I was married with my ex-husband back home. But when I arrive here I say I can't raise this kid by myself, somebody he has to come and I didn't see myself married another guy with young kid. I was so scared and then we start, we had problem back home and I work hard and make him come. He's a father of my kids. He came so I need help for the kids when he arrive here, didn't work with him. Few years later we get divorced and I'll stay myself like 10 years and then after 10 years I got remarried with an American guy, my husband, my actual husband. So in that time when I left David, I bought the store on Congress Street to Antoine's That store been there more than four years. He's been there forever. And then the owner was retiring and then he was looking for somebody to buy the store and then they contact me. It was just a perfect, perfect fit for me. I bought the store and it was just a tailoring shop and I change it. I still keep the name. I prefer to keep the name for this long so people get familiar of me and they know I is still there and now I'm ready. I'm changing the name soon it's going to be Adele and Antoine but I'm working on to change the name and I told it to become a different, I still do alteration, but I sell more, I sell import suit from Europe, slim cut or European style shoes and suit for men, some pieces for women mostly I do for men and I do a lot of wearing alteration and I do some design for people want to that for my business now. That's what I do. So the organization, Women United around the World also, when I arrived here I was just observing and where I was working at the place I used to work, we had problem to find good seamstress, everybody going to come, they said they know how to sew but it wasn't that profession sewing and they keep bothering me in my heart and I was like I need to do something. Also back home I was more involved a lot with women activity and we celebrate a lot. Women International Day, it's a big thing in Congo that how after a few years being here I was like everybody when it's March 8th, my friends all over the world they're going to call me, are you doing something? I say, no, there is nothing here. And they don't celebrate the event here And one day I decide to celebrate International I come with idea to have international fashion show. I'll present a few pieces for my collection and invite all the women coming from different part of the world to present the traditional outfits so people can know our tradition where we come. And again, in my head I know women, all the women from no matter where you come from, we are all connected in fashion. All the women love fashion. And then I organize that first year fashion show, international fashion show to celebrate International Women Day. It was kind of successful. I had a hundred people show up in this room, I ran and it was so much fun and people love it. And from there, after day that they come, a lot of women come to me, they want to help me, they want to look and do something from this and that's how we create a Woman United Around the World and through the organization we start helping immigrant to come for integration, connecting them with local women and then start teaching them sewing. That's how I start doing the sewing through the organization and I did the sewing since I opened the organization in 2010, but the sewing class started 2012. I did that from 2012 until 2018 and then after Covid I closed. I couldn't do it and I was doing all this for free. I didn't know I can get help. I didn't have no idea. I just get because now we starting having the event, the celebration of international mandate. Every year we're going to do this. Now we become a little bit bigger. We have more than 500 show up to the event and now we do that at Italian editor center around the month of March and then the money we get there that the money I'm going to use to, I bought the sewing machine, I got the staff to teach and I never get paid for it. All this years I just do it and train women and I had a great experience with that classes and as they need, there is a need in the community for that. I have so many women today they walking as if seamstresses become their career from the training they got. I even have a lady who came, she's from my country, she was a lawyer back home, but when she come here she can't practice lack of language and she's not allowed to practice with a diploma. She came to me, take my training today, she's a professional seamstress and that's what I'm doing. And now after Covid this year was the first year we went back because in some point I get so kind of discouraged and tired of, I say I don't want to do this anymore. But it's hard because it's something in my heart. It's just dear in my heart. I couldn't give up on it. I'll come back to it now. This year we did another event was very, very successful also. And now we are starting again. The school. How many students do you have starting up this year? So far I have 16 students register so far, but I'm try to go slowly and now I know I'm writing grants so if I get them more found I'll get more students because I'll have more trainer so we can expand the class and it can be available for anyone who are interesting. How long does this take to get the type of training that you're offering? The training I'm offering is going to take nine months is going to take like you are the beginner. You can come even though you never touch a machine, you can come see us. We start from teaching you the different power of the machine, how to trade the sewing machine and then we can go through all those different stitches, different seams, all the technical of sewing. We're going to focus more on sewing, not too much on design, little bit design in advanced class, but mostly the beginning is going to be just the technique of sewing. We have like I say, nine months, three months for beginner, three months for intermedia and three months for advance. Is there a lot of need for people to learn how to sew? Are there a lot of jobs for people who are seamstresses or tailors right now? I think there is a need because if I speak to around me, people in Maine, everybody, mostly people say my grandma used to sew, my mom used to make her clothes. Now there's not any mom who make clothes and there's job, there's job. And I think because of lack of walker in that field, no business people, there are no interest to them because they don't have worker as they have. If they know they can fund worker, professional worker, I think there will be more job. And right now there's job, there's job in, I have student worker. I asked more student to work at Sugar. She's in Bideford. She does a beautiful gown. Some of my students work there and there is a lot of, I did some research. There is job, they can work at LL bean and it's just there is no many who are trained. There's not many who do that. Also in my head now, fashion become very, it's very challenging because everything we are wearing, it's like one use, you wear one time and then it's no good anymore because everything coming from overseas and if we train more people, it bring back the business back in the United States. I think we can do better. We need to be, I'm thinking just bigger and see that we can train more people so we can start making our own clothes like people used to do years ago. One of the things that I think as you're talking about this that comes to me is that we have ended up making people fit into clothes that maybe don't flatter them because they have to be very specific sizes and they have to look a very specific way. But if we were able to offer options because they're more personalized to the individual, then that could end up being really important. It could really contribute to people's confidence. Yes, exactly. That's a good point. I've seen that with a lot of women. I designed stuff for them, especially a lot of American, they don't have experience of a custom design and it fits you like a glove because it's customized for you. There is no alter. You don't need alteration after it's made for you. But wherever we buy from the store, there are standard measurement made. There are just for, there are no, and we all have different body that we need to be and women wear something is customers for her give a lot of confidence. I seen that a lot. They're so happy because first of all, they choose the fabric they want and they choose. They design they want what always they have in their mind. I would love to have this and it make them very confident and they feel confident. Self-esteem. In your current business, it sounds like you're focusing more on weddings and wedding dresses. If you had the opportunity to get back into design work that really was important to you, what would that look like? What do you like to design? I like to design. I like to design special occasion like a one-on-one like a mud of the bride dress mud of the groo, design dresses for different special occasion. I love that and I would love to do again my collection of a fleece jacket. I would love to reproduce that as a kind of production and that's where if I train more people, I'll hide them myself so they can work for me and yeah, I would love to do that. It's so exciting and I love to do personal design for one-on-one for people. It's so nice to see just the fabric from nowhere and somebody would never have the experience. All that process, I have so many customers, so happy and they make them feel good and feel beautiful. So it sounds like if you can get people who are qualified to do the sewing.. I can bring my business in different level too. Do you ever return back to the Congo? That's a good question. I returned back after 23 years. It was just a couple years. I went there with my husband. It was very emotional. I was happy to be back. He was crying every day, everywhere seeing my people. I left there, the life they have now and the country where it is because I left because of ethnic war since then and the war still continues somehow some part of the country, the country is not doing very well in its best, is not in a good condition and people have not very good life. That was, I was happy to see the people, but sad to see that and to see the life we have here and over there. I was like, this is not fair for them. And I can say here, I'm thankful to be in America and in America we take everything sometime for granted because we don't know. We don't have no idea what other people are going through. If people can have just think and then see the condition other people leave, I don't think we're going to be wasting what we wasting. We are not going to be complaining. We complain. All those stuff we do, I think we'll do better and we appreciate better what we have here. Do you think that people might come to the United States after talking to you back home? Everybody want to live everywhere in the world. I think everybody love, I'm the American life. Everybody everywhere in the world. That's why you see this inflation of a lot of immigrants because everybody want to come here because of the lifestyle we have here and the safety. We are safe and we have good life in America. It's hard for us. We think it's hard, but no, we have a good life in America compared to other places in the world. Yeah, we are blessed in America. If you were to talk to someone who was like yourself, who was newly to the United States and they were asking your advice about the things that they could do to be as happy as possible, what would be your advice? What would be your words to them? If somebody came is new here, I'll tell them to be patient with themself. Don't feel guilty for anything you feel because sometime people and they don't compare your previous life and the life here. Just walk through. First of all, if you are like me, learn English. That's the key. Go to school, learn English. I used to see myself when I arrive, I'm a Christian. I used to say whatever, God did a difference where I were before. It's going to still make the difference everywhere I go. That was my belief and I believe inside me somehow. One day I'm going to have okay life compare from the beginning and I'll tell people, just be patient, learn English, you'll be okay. You're going to make it, you'll be okay. It take time. You have to be patient. I encourage them to have good friends. If you surround yourself with good friends, especially, don't stay just on your community, your only community. Create a new community, create your own community with American friends, through school, through work, and then it's going to help you to grow and you're going to make it. That's very good advice. Well, Adele, I appreciate your coming in today. Thank you very much, Lisa. Thank you. It's a pleasure and honor for you to have me. Oh, I think the honor is all mine. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you. Today we've been speaking with Adele. She is the founder and president of Women United around the World and also the owner of Antoine's Taylor Shop. And I suspect that you are going to see much more from Adele with her fashion design and I really wish you all the best in the next level of your business Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.