Be innovative, entrepreneur says

 SMALL tailoring and fashion design businesses in Papua New Guinea should stop the attitude of copying each other’s ideas, a female entrepreneur said yesterday.

Skipy Fashion and Interior Design Ltd manager and designer Sharon Kim Taso said local fashion and tailoring industry in PNG had just started to grow and designers and tailors must have respect for each other’s initiatives and ideas.

She said people should not be concerned with only making money, but come up with ideas and initiatives on what they were good at in meeting demands of their respective customers. 

Taso started her small tailoring company in 2005 in Port Moresby, and the business had grown over the years.

“One of my frustrations is that other women spoil my designs and make the dresses and meri blouses into something less attractive and without quality and sells them for less again.

“When you start stealing the design of somebody and start tailoring what you do not design, you are confining yourself and won’t be open-minded to try something new.

“There was one time when I spotted a woman wearing the same kind of designed meri blouse that I usually sew. I noticed it was not sewn properly and I knew someone else has already copied my style … I got really frustrated.”

However, she added that if women were to copy her ideas and venture into their little businesses, they should not distort the ideashe initiated and must do it properly with care and concern for their customers’ needs.