Inside her home on 60th Street in East Oakland, longtime Oakland resident Rebecca Washington-Ogbevar wears what she considers casual clothing. It’s a long, flowing dress with traditional African patterns in red, navy blue, and green, complete with a matching headwrap. .
Washington Ogbebor, a seamstress and clothing designer, sewed the dress and headwrap herself.
“When I started making clothes, I always felt this spirituality around me,” she said. “It made me realize that I don’t have to conform to the world or do things the way it wants me to do them, it’s okay to do things my way.”
Wilsdom African Designs, 2557 60th Ave. Open Mondays 12-6:30 p.m., Tuesdays-Fridays 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Saturdays 12-5:30 p.m. Reservations are required. Closed on Sundays.
Washington Ogbebor is the founder and owner of Willsdom African Designs, a traditional African clothing boutique out of his home near the Bancroft business district. Using fabrics sourced from Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Nigeria and other African countries, she creates clothing for almost any occasion, including bridal gowns, graduation caps and stoles, dashikis, sarongs, and kufi caps. are handmade. According to her, it takes her one day to a week for her dress to be completed.
In addition to clothing, the Washington-Ogbebor shop also sells earrings, Kwanzaa gifts, and beauty products such as raw shea butter, African black soap, and body oil.
The inspiration to start Willsdom African Designs came in 1990 when she hosted a “Tupperware Party.” A social gathering where Tupperware consultants display and sell the company’s latest products. At those parties, Ms. Washington-Ogbebor’s friends often asked her where she got the clothes she sewed herself using Nigerian fabrics.
Seeing their curiosity as a new business opportunity, Washington Ogbebor began hosting fashion shows to showcase her designs. She created dresses, skirts, and head wraps and had two of her friends model the clothes at other people’s homes.
“So Willsdom worked. I was having a Tupperware party; [with] I wore African clothes instead,” she said.
Her work went viral. She began selling her clothing at her flea market in a warehouse on 23rd Street and East 14th Street, and eventually East she opened her business in Foothill Square in the Oakland hinterland. I moved it.
In 2002, Washington Ogbebor moved her business so she could work from home to help care for her 15 grandchildren. Many of her grandchildren have modeled her clothes on her store’s website and helped create her Yelp, Etsy, and Facebook pages.
“I didn’t want to be Rachel Zoe or Michael Kors or any of those famous designers. I just wanted to take care of my family,” she said.
Over the years, she has built up a loyal clientele across the country. According to her memories, her first big order was a $1,200 piece of mud cloth for a Native American tribe in Utah. She has made graduation stoles for many schools including her 100% College Prep in San Francisco, College Track in Oakland, Hayward High School, and Pasadena City College. She has also sewn mourning suits for babies and adults who have died, as well as masks with traditional African patterns for hospitals and medical professionals during the coronavirus shutdown.
In addition to using social media to promote her small business, most of Washington Ogbebor’s customers know about her through word of mouth.
“I like to say I’m hiding, but I’m not hiding,” she said.
Washington Ogbebor, a woman of faith, said she came up with the name for her business as a “revelation from God.”
From the bayous of Louisiana to the plains of Oakland
Ogbebor was born in Natchitoches, Louisiana, Washington and raised by his mother. His grandfather was a member of the Choctaw tribe. and her grandmother, whom she called a “Southern belle.”
When she was in elementary school, she moved across the country with her family to the Brookfield Village neighborhood of Oakland. The eldest of five children, she attended Brookfield Elementary School, Madison Park Academy, Castlemont High School, and Skyline High School.
“We were free to roam and play all over the block until the streetlights came on,” Washington-Ogbebor said of her brother and three sisters.
At age 12, she learned to sew by watching her aunt. “Her aunt was a voluptuous woman, so she would make things herself and I would be right there with her,” Washington-Ogbebor said. “When I started sewing, it just came naturally. I can’t explain it.”
Washington Ogbebor is no stranger to hardship. Growing up in the South, she was bullied at her school because her hair was different from other girls. “I grew up looking for people like me with this skin and hair, but she never saw anyone who looked like me,” she said.
In January 2000, one of her children, Andre D. Stanley, was stabbed to death at age 24, leaving behind five children. He became the year’s first homicide victim, according to the Oakland Tribune.
During the pandemic shutdown, Washington-Ogbebor’s father and stepmother, two of her closest friends, died of COVID-19 eight days apart.
“This was just a journey,” she said, describing her loved one’s death as “a heaven opening.”
In addition to the “spirit of” [her] Washington-Ogbebor’s faith plays a big role in her life, she said, as her “ancestors” gave her strength. Ordained as a minister through Living Hope Gospel Ministries International in Washington Ogbebor, she is the author of four books, all of which detail her life and her spiritual journey. Masu.
Her latest book, “Wilsdom, Dominion, and Power: (A Full Circle)” is accompanied by a soundtrack written and composed by her youngest son and Auckland School of Art graduate, Courage Ogbebor.
Washington Ogbebor wants to spread a message of faith, love and hope. When I’m not working in clothing, I enjoy talking to and empowering young people.
“I’m always checking in to see if these young people are doing something different with their lives,” she said. “We don’t need more prisons, no more incarceration, no more deaths.”
Note: This article has been corrected to identify Courage Ogbebor as Washington-Ogbebor’s youngest son, not his grandson.
