Not everyone has had the opportunity to transform a passion into a full-fledged business enterprise, so that for all the challenges that she has had to face in the process of so doing, Melana Hudson concedes not just that she is privileged to enjoy the best of both worlds but that she never fails to count her blessings.
M&H designs is situated at Crane on the West Coast of Demerara. The concept was fashioned out of boredom, during her sojourn in Trinidad and Tobago when her full-time job was not sufficient to fill her day. By uncanny coincidence, her sister, who had also been living in Trinidad and Tobago had upped and gone back to Guyana leaving a perfectly good sewing machine lying idle in the home.
That was 2014 and she had found herself in a circumstance in which there wasn’t enough activity to fill her waking day whilst her urge to indulge in fashion design was perfectly complemented by access to a functioning sewing machine. Melana could ask for no greater incentive.
The experiment in honing her hobby into ‘something more’ began with handbags stitched together with assorted fabric, which, in much earlier days had come to be known by experienced seamstresses as ‘odds and ends.’ Still, she only began to take the pursuit seriously after a handbag that she had fashioned out of a discarded denim dress had garnered rave reviews from her colleagues at the office. That triggered a measure of patronage from her workmates as well as a modest second income.
In 2015, the self-taught designer returned to Guyana and sufficiently encouraged by the strides that she had made in Trinidad and Tobago, continued to sew and sell bags here. Her local market, initially, depended heavily on the support of relatives whom she relied upon to market her bags amongst their friends and work colleagues. Guyana, however, was unfamiliar turf and business, not unexpectedly, proceeded at a sedate trot. Her initial startup capital had derived from savings accumulated in Trinidad and Tobago and on returning to Guyana she had secured a loan from the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED).
Change came late in 2015 when Melana participated in a craft exhibition at the Giftland Mall. It was here that she developed a much enhanced sense of the local fashion culture. Natural hair had landed on the local fashion stage like some overly energetic headwind and Melana was by no means inclined to stare a gift horse in the mouth.
It was at the Giftland Mall, too, that Melana discovered that natural hair was ‘in’ and her creative intuition told her that satin-lined headlines would go well with these exotic hairstyles. There began an initiative to bring satin scarves to the fashion market. She reflects on the first two years of her entrepreneurial pursuits in Guyana when the challenges revolved chiefly around capital accumulation challenges and sourcing reasonably priced material. Times, she concedes, have changed. These days, in an effort to stay ahead of the competition, Melana imports most of her materials, pointing out that the local market does not provide a sufficiently wide range of material to do justice to her creative ambitions. While resort to importation has placed an additional strain on her modest enterprise, she does not consider herself as having a choice. Not surprisingly, she believes that her own industry is deserving of official consideration for duty-free concessions.
These days, compelled to move with the times, Melana is preoccupied with fashion research. Some of her designs, like the fabric choka, have their roots in intuition. Other are the outcomes of much more gradual processes. With maturity, it seem, has come a greater degree of patience.
Gradually, growth has come. It started to show itself, she says in 2017. She believes it arose out of her participation in various events including the UncappeD event at the Providence Stadium and the Women In Business event at the Pegasus Hotel. In the wake of these events, she says, there have been pleasing spikes in sales and the emergence of new longer-term customers.
These days, Melana’s creations can be bought at the Ko Ko outlet on Robb Street, Hayaa Queen’s Collection on Orange Walk, and Pieces and Things on North Road. Late last year she secured a distributor in Lethem. Modest markets also exist in Europe and North America. Currently, she is working on hijab headwear for an overseas client.
Last year, Melana attended a Business Development Workshop hosted by Courts and delivered by Cerulean Inc. the issues covered at the Workshop included law, marketing, accounting among others.
Melana works from home and can be reached on telephone number 665- 9792.
