Shade Thomas-Fahm

• Name — Shade Thomas-Fahm • Birth Name — Victoria Omọ́rọ́níkẹ Àdùkẹ́ Fọlashadé Thomas • Born — 22 September 1933 • Occupation — Fashion designer • Notable Works — Shade's Boutique

Thomas-Fahm was born on 22 September 1933 to parents of Yoruba descent. Her father was Bankole Ayorinde Thomas and her mother, Elizabeth Olaniwun Thomas. She attended St. Peter's School in Faaji and also Baptist Girls' School, Araromi and New Era Girls' Senior Secondary School, Surulere, Lagos. In the summer of 1953, she left Nigeria for England to become a nurse. Taking instead to fashion in London, she enrolled into Saint Martin's School of Art, where she studied fashion designing and was the first Nigerian woman to do so. She worked briefly as a fashion buyer at Simpson's of Piccadilly before returning to Nigeria. According to Thomas-Fahm, she returned to Nigeria "to provide jobs for people and tackle unemployment". She encountered problem convincing the natives to buy local fabrics and use traditional designs because the British cultural influence in Nigeria was not countered then. Thomas-Fahm popularised the use of hand-dyed adire and aso oke in ready-to-wear styles. In the 1960s, she founded the Shades Boutique. It started with the Maison Shadé, which she opened in 1960 in Yaba, Lagos. Thomas-Fahm influenced her contemporaries from the 1970s, including Abah Folawiyo, Betti O, Folorunsho Alakija, and Nike Davies-Okundaye.