Birmingham seamstress fulfills her dream: ‘I would love to be a black female business owner’

Every Friday night in the early 70s, Theuda Namosa Tusaziwe and a friend dance in handmade bell bottoms, crop tops with bell sleeves, halter necks, “hip huggers and elephant leg flare pants” with big Afro puffs could be found.

Today, Tusajiwe, owner of Namosa Designs & Fabrics in Woodlawn, sits at a desk, her sewing machine humming. She is wearing pink corduroy flared pants. He has pink-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Her long locks are tied into pigtails and hang far beyond her dangling, tortoiseshell earrings.

“I started sewing when I was 16. I love sewing with every part of me, I love sewing more than anything,” said Tusajive. “Whenever we went to the club, people would just wait to see what we had. It was very exciting. That’s when I started sewing. “I fell in love with it out of a necessity because I could never find anything for me in stores that was long enough or stylish enough.”

Tussejiwe has built a home in Birmingham, but he said the city’s development has been very slow, especially for the black community.

“I’ve been in and out of Birmingham many times waiting for something to happen in this city, and it’s taken too long,” she said.

According to a recent study by the Brookings Institution, Black women accounted for more than 19% of all female-owned businesses in the US in 2017, which is higher than their proportion in the population. However, representation remains low in the Birmingham metro, according to a report from Prosper, a Birmingham nonprofit that helps grow Black-owned businesses.

JW Carpenter, president of Prosper, said, “One of the ways we’ve lagged behind in Birmingham is not just in the number of black-owned businesses, but also in the number of black-owned businesses, which have a low relative to the size of our population. There are more than 100 employees.” , Said.

He said Prosper is working to ensure that Birmingham’s black business owners have access to contracts for new employees, connections with funders and educational opportunities to grow their businesses.

“The only chance we have to become the most inclusive and thriving economy in the Southeast is to ensure that all our residents and business owners have opportunities to grow. And so based on the Brookings data we saw that we were behind and that’s why we’re focused on making sure that those Black-owned businesses have those opportunities,” Carpenter said.

Theuda Namosa Tusaziwe, owner of Namosa Designs & Fabrics in Woodlawn, stands amid brightly colored fabrics in her store on Dec. 12, 2023. Tusajiwe has been sewing since she was 16 years old and dreamed of starting her own business. Alaina Bookman

Valencia King, former president of the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association, said the neighborhood is becoming a more diverse and inclusive place.

“The growth of minority and Black-owned businesses, you have to look at what the history of our community used to be. Our community was not always accepting of African American people. The growth of their businesses and them coming back and revitalizing Woodlawn is amazing,” King said.

Originally, Tussajiwe grew up in Sipsey, a small town in Walker County.

“Fashion, style, outlet stores, we were so far away from everything. We had no fashion sense in that community, but my girlfriend and I were very fashionable. We weren’t satisfied with normal,” she said.

She changed her name to Linda Annette Sims 28 years ago. She said her name was “very country”. Theuda Namosa Tusajive, derived from Swahili, means benevolent and charitable, sharing and giving, God’s blessing.

“I changed my name because it fits my personality. It defines who I am as a person. African names describe who you are or who you strive to be, things you want to develop in your character.

Thusajiwe and her friend began sewing and making clothes at the kitchen table of the only person in their community who knew how to sew.

Eventually he saved enough money to buy his own sewing machine. They would frequent the community’s only clothing store and have new costumes made for the dance.

After graduating from high school, Tusajive went into the army. She continued sewing and also hosted fashion shows in the barracks.

“It was something that never left me. Every aspect of my work focuses on sewing,” she said.

Tusijiwe got married while deployed in Germany. She moved back to Birmingham and had children.

Over time, he worked in various alteration shops across the city to develop his skills. In her late 30s, she was the first black woman to work as a costume designer at Birmingham Children’s Theatre.

“I could never work for anyone for very long. I could stay only for a short time. I left that job, which was a good job, to open my own shop,” he said. “I was never satisfied working for someone else because I am working and contributing all my skills, all my time and all my energy to someone else’s business. I wanted to do my own thing.

In 2018, Tusajiwe opened her own shop in an empty space above a business, where she also sewed clothes.

“I always wanted a place where I could do everything under one roof. Where I can teach classes, I can sell clothes and I can sew as much as I want,” she said.

In 2020, they found a larger building in Woodlawn, an ideal location for their business.

His shop is big and bright, each wall is a different colour. The entrance is yellow in summer, his office is green in spring, the clothing store is deep royal purple. Rolls of brightly colored cloth are placed in a silver box and hung from rods. Hundreds of spools of thread are kept neatly in his office.

In her shop, she makes, tailors and alters clothes and teaches one-on-one sewing classes.

Tusajiwe said he hopes to receive more financial support from neighborhood business associations to help grow his business. She is renting the building for her shop, but has invested in renovations and hopes to own it one day. He and his team also hope to move into small-scale manufacturing and design their own clothing line.

“We want to do all those things but it takes time, it takes a lot of patience and it takes a team of people to do it, not just the people who work in the building, but the people who support us.” Give and keep moving forward. When things get tough, swim. And they become hardened,” she said. “We want to be here and we feel like we deserve it because we’ve earned it.”

Tusajive said he loves being a part of the Woodlawn community. She often collaborates with local business owners and provides small jobs to those in need.

“We want people to understand that Woodlawn is safe. We like it very much. We appreciate. And we recognize its growth and we understand that it takes a village to make it happen. We understand that people want a good place to go. So we wanted to make our shop feel very warm, open and welcoming,” she said.

“We try to reach our customers wherever they are. If you have an event, if you have an emergency, a funeral,” she said. “We don’t assess the price. We consider our neighborhood and where we are, who our customers are. We try to work with people.”

The store reaches its peak during prom season. High school students come to the shop with their families seeking extravagant gowns featuring pearls, diamond studs, velvet and feathers. He said he gets the most business from young men looking to decorate their suit jackets.

“We live for prom season,” she said.

On the other hand, older men also form a large part of its customer base. Many people came to the shop wanting to get the hem of their church pants hemmed or the buttons on their suit jackets.

A man came in to pick up a blue jean shirt, with a red panel sewn into the back with a picture of Elvis printed on it. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he held the shirt out in front of him, and he smiled widely as he walked out of the store.

“We want to make people’s dreams come true about what they want to look like. It’s a process, starting with measurements, deciding on the fabric, deciding the style, fit, etc. It is hand-crafted,” she said.

Tusaziwe said his favorite part of running his own business is knowing that his grandchildren look up to him.

“I love being a Black female business owner because I think it speaks to a lot of young people who come and see me doing this. That’s really why I want to set a good example for them so they can see that it’s possible,” Tusajive said. “I would love to be a mentor to other black women who love this industry.”

Source: www.al.com