Cerise
Alabi
01.
What is your professional title, purpose or passion?
I am Co-founder and designer for Cold Laundry.
03.
What did you want to do when you were a child and what changed?
When I was younger I actually wanted to be a presenter even though I was extremely shy at the time, as I got older I really gravitated towards film and media and then eventually finding my feet in fashion.
05.
What's the best career advice you've ever been given?
‘Start where you are and do what you can’
and ‘say yes now and figure it all out later’.
I definitely try to live by these!
07.
What is the best thing about your current working environment?
I love that we have created a team that has really become a family from our store staff and models, to our photographer to our operations team.
09.
Where do you see yourself in five years' time?
In five years I see myself with a few more stores open worldwide and possibly another brand.
11.
Tell us more about a charitable organisation or project you think is great.
An organisation I love is For the people from the people. They run a lot of different workshops for everyone in the community providing opportunities such as trips, cooking classes, sports and many more activities that aren’t easily accessible.
13.
What drives you?
I definitely dream big! And I have a lot of visions of the future so that definitely keeps me going !
15.
Any final comments?
Thank you for reading ! You can follow me on @cerisealabi and my brand @coldlaundry !
02.
What does a normal day look like for you?
I usually start my day around 6am in the mornings before the kids get up. This allows me to work on different areas of the business a couple of hours in the morning before things get a little manic. I work on my design process, research and development and also do all my emails early in the morning mixed with also working with my husband, Ola on day to day tasks and planning. My days vary as I am between London and Portugal, I’m currently in Portugal so when I am here I would head to the factory to do sample fits and all things related to production.
It’s great being able to work for myself as I’m able to take my kids with me and balance workload with Ola Also.
04.
What have you achieved that you feel most proud of?
I feel super proud of the brand my husband and I have created in such a short space of time. Taking that leap and figuring it all out along the way. It’s a beautiful feeling.
06.
Tell us about a a woman who inspires you
All of the women in my life inspire me, my mother, my mother- in-law, my sisters. Seeing their indivisible journeys and how they became the strong women they are today is such an inspiration to me it shows me how we are constantly changing and evolving to get to where we want to be in life.
08.
What was your biggest failure?
I really don’t want to sound cheesy but I don’t have any, only lessons because honestly everything I have ever regretted has always worked out and made sense in the end so I always keep that in mind.
10.
What do you like most about yourself?
I love my ambition, I love how big I dream and the determination and resilience it takes to get there.
12.
How can we make the world more inclusive and accepting?
Definitely by speaking up and calling it out at every given opportunity, the more comfortable we all get with doing this the less comfortable people will be with excluding not accepting communities.
14.
What skills have been key to your journey so far?
I would definitely say my optimism it’s definitely an underestimated skill that is needed in this industry. A lot of things can go wrong very last minute but being in that positive headspace can get you though the other side for sure!