Chizoba Martin (BCom’14): Telfer’s 2024 Young Achiever and Pioneering Couture Fashion Designer

Chizoba Martin (BCom’14) is the award-winning lead fashion designer and owner of the luxury formal brand Zoba Martin. Hailing from a family of entrepreneurs in her homeland of Nigeria, Chizoba followed in their footsteps. She came to Canada alone and studied Entrepreneurship at Telfer. Then, after attending fashion design school, she founded her own ready-to-wear couture brand. 

In just ten short years since graduating, Chizoba has been on Dragon’s Den; her custom pieces were featured in three of Drake’s music videos; and her designs have been featured in multiple fashion shows. In 2018, she won the Emerging Designer of the Year Award by African Fashion Week Toronto. 

“Finding my community at Telfer”

Today, she has her own fashion studio in Toronto, where she is working on a new collection. As the owner of a fashion company, Chizoba is a proud advocate of sustainability. She creates and sews custom-to-order pieces that last her clients decades and will be passed down to future generations.  

When choosing her program, a Bachelor of Commerce in Entrepreneurship, Chizoba already had an inkling of what she wanted to do next. She grew up with a mom who attended fashion school and an aunt who created and designed her wedding dress. She remembers tinkering with her mom’s sewing machine and looking at her sketches with awe. 

Chizoba’s passion for fashion is in her blood, and as a young student, she decided to turn it into a business. On her mother’s advice, she chose to go abroad and came to Telfer, where she could study in both English and French.

However, being a newcomer to Canada, she was introverted and kept to herself initially while finding her footing. Eventually, she joined the Nigerian Student Association: “Having that community helped me assimilate and not miss home as much.” 

In the classroom, Chizoba liked group projects where she could interact with people from other backgrounds, enjoying the diversity. “With academics, trying out all the classes in 1st and 2nd year led me to understand what I want to learn more: entrepreneurship, HR, business, relationships,” adds Chizoba.

She fondly remembers her time at uOttawa, where she felt supported and encouraged to participate in student groups. She made life-long connections between studying and participating in her community’s student club. Some of her clients are uOttawa alumni!  

Building the entrepreneurship tribe

After graduating from Telfer, Chizoba continued her studies at the LaSalle College Toronto School of Design and worked at Kleinfeld, a bridal shop. Uncovering her passion for design, she used her final project of 12 custom pieces as the foundation to soft launch her luxury formal brand Zoba Martin in 2016. Then came first clients, pop-up events, and awards. In 2019, she officially launched the company.

Other entrepreneurs had to start from scratch and learn everything from the ground up. That was not the case for Chizoba, whose family is 90% entrepreneurs: “It was not a foreign concept to me. It’s what you do—start a business and make money. My dad lives and breathes business. This helped a lot when I founded my brand.” Still, at first, she learned on the go, adapting to the unexpected, and implementing theory from school to real-life situations.

“At the beginning, it was just me doing my own thing, but over time you find your tribe,” adds Chizoba. A firm believer in community, she joined a group of businesswomen online to share experiences and grow her confidence. She also travels for business retreats and always seeks out new knowledge, listening to Hello Seven Podcast, hosted by Rachel Rodgers, a wife, a mom, and a CEO of an 8-figure business. 

Chizoba also learns from her employees, their different skill sets, and her clients. As each piece is custom-made, she must fully understand her clients’ desires to meet their standards. 

Empowering women

Chizoba designs feminine and elegant dresses for all body types, living and breathing body positivity daily. For the fashion designer, it’s not just a buzzword; it’s a part of the intricate process of bringing a garment to life, from just a sketch to reality. Because every piece is formal, it must fit the client’s body perfectly so every woman feels her best, especially on her wedding day or during a special occasion.

Chizoba decided to focus her collections on bridal and formalwear pieces because of her love for glamour. She works with special fabrics and embellishments not often seen in daily life. Learning from her mother in childhood, Chizoba collaborates with her “fashionista” mom, calling her when she stumbles upon a creative block.

Blending the creativity of fashion with the business of entrepreneurship

Chizoba always knew she wanted to be a fashion entrepreneur but never imagined being a designer. Now, she thrives on the creativity of conceptualizing custom garments for her clients. But owning your own business means administrative work and HR, too.

“In a perfect world, you just create and get money in your bank account,” laughs Chizoba. “In real life, you have to do the business side, and I had to learn that.” 

She blends business with pleasure by prioritizing her time, sectioning off time for calculating expenses, ordering materials, and other “fun things” like taxes.

“Something that really helped me was hiring help,” says Chizoba. “There are so many parts in design—design itself, selecting fabric, creating the piece. Finding skilled staff with experience was key for my business, so I could have time to take care of other parts.”

While it can be challenging to create only, Chizoba found a middle ground in delegating certain tasks to others. This way, she returns to her core “why” of starting a business—the art of creativity.  

Love and passion for design

This love for creating fuels the fashion entrepreneur every day and leads to amazing success in Canada’s fashion industry.

“It doesn’t feel like work to me,” adds Chizoba. “I think back to where I started, leaving Ottawa for Toronto without a network, living in a small apartment that couldn’t even fit my couch. From there, I just had to believe and keep going, and this is where I am now.”

A firm believer in perseverance, Chizoba strives to be better every single day. She cherishes her freedom and flexibility as a self-employed person and gains immense joy and satisfaction from her work. And it pays off.

In 2022, Chizoba pitched her custom dress business on Dragon’s Den. University of Ottawa’s Honorary Doctorate recipient and businessman Wes Hall stood up for her, interested in the business. This was a huge achievement for the fashion designer who only had 10 days to prepare her pitch from the time she received the invitation to be on the show.

“This experience was very important,” says Chizoba. “The Dragons’ questions helped me improve my business. Even though the deal didn’t go through after the show, seeing Wes stand up for me gave me hope, validation, and support for my product.” 

Slow fashion: sustainability by default

Sustainability is woven into the core fabric of the Zoba Martin brand. Creating custom collections to order means not having inventory. “We never mass produce and we don’t have anything lying around,” adds Chizoba. “I want my clients to wear my pieces with intentionality and cherish them forever.” That’s easy to do, considering how intricate and special each dress made by Chizoba is.

Chizoba’s brand is the perfect example of eco-fashion, keeping garments out of landfills and contributing to eliminating fashion waste. Globally, the fashion industry creates 92 million tons of textile waste annually. Zoba Martin works to combat this, one custom garment at a time.

Chizoba’s clients have kept the formal pieces for years. The dresses can be adjusted to accommodate body changes, allowing clients to repurpose them for multiple occasions.

Chizoba Martin’s advice to current Telfer students

Chizoba is passionate about her work and encourages young Telfer students to find what makes them happy.: “Look for what makes you happy, explore different hobbies, and interact with people. Over time, you will find something you love that sticks with you.”

She also encourages students to carefully select a university program to help them realize their passion. Then, in school, to talk to people and learn from their experiences—this is the multicultural aspect Chizoba enjoyed about Telfer, maintaining friendships with classmates to this day.

What’s next for the dedicated entrepreneur? Chizoba is hard at work in her new studio in Toronto, where she moved in just this year. Enjoying the work-life balance, she finally doesn’t have to work from home anymore. She is excited to release a new bridal collection this fall, hoping that everyone will find a design that suits them.

Telfer is proud of all the impressive work Chizoba has accomplished with her custom dress brand, and we can’t wait to see where she will be in the next ten years!