‘My style reflects my personality’

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2017-07-18 10:40:11 -

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Eunice Abe tells Austin Anderson how her passion for fashion set her on the right course for success

Eunice Abe has never been afraid to be bold. During the first week of her new job at Inspired Thinking Group in Birmingham, England, she walked into the office rocking lace flared pants to show her “sass”, a rock band T-shirt to show her personality, and a leather jacket to “dial it down”.

“Only you would do this,” a friend remarked – meaning that only Eunice could walk into a new job as a social media executive in a different country as if she were a model flaunting down the runway.

Eunice describes her style as quirky, bubbly and sassy, because that’s her personality and when it comes to fashion. “It’s all about personality,” she says of a fashion habit that was seeded early. In her school days, she recalls, pupils were required to wear uniforms, but being “rebellious”, she only partly obliged, pushing the limits of what was allowed by the teachers and principals.

“Fashion is a medium in which one can express themselves and it always will be,” says Eunice. “If I wake up feeling like a million pounds, believe me, I will rock the most flamboyant piece of clothing in my wardrobe. But if I simply wake up feeling ‘meh’, I’m pulling out an oversized hoodie with some denim jeans ... My style reflects my personality. Fashion isn’t something that should be forced.”

In 1999, Eunice and her family left Switzerland, where she was born, to live in Germany, where she was raised. She then moved to Mullingar and grew up in the midlands town until she moved to Dublin for college in 2014.

“Ireland will always be home,” says Eunice, now aged 24. “I never really appreciated until I left and I do miss it ever so much.”

After her first year of university in Ireland, Eunice realised she “completely hated” her degree in European business and German. She enjoyed business, but in her heart she kept returning to her passion for fashion. After dropping out, she looked for a way to combine business and fashion, and found it in a two-year Fetac course in fashion industry practice at the Sallynoggin College of Further Education in south Dublin.

Four years and one more change of country later, Eunice is within a week of graduating with honours with a Bachelor’s degree in fashion business and German, while continuing her work in social media - where she can express herself in her style even if the job doesn’t mean working hands-on with fashion.

Friends still come to her to take them shopping and help with their own style, she says with pride, and she can see herself becoming a personal stylist as a side line one day.

But for now, she is celebrating the success she has already achieved.

“Don’t worry about what others may think,” says Eunice. ”People thought I was crazy dropping out of a great uni in Ireland and then doing a two-year PLC course. If I listened to what other people thought and if it bothered me, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Focus on the goal and you come out on top, I promise you.”