Santa’s thirst for design success

“I wanted a story with a beautiful ending, like my life. I struggled with not being wanted; there is a stage where butterflies are unwelcome; when they are caterpillars. I have been through all of that. In fact, the true Arapapa is just opening up now. After all these years, the dress rehearsal has just ended and the beautiful story of my life begins.”
Arapapa means butterfly in Madi, a language from the West Nile region.

“This may not sound fashionable but l received the name in a vision from God,” she recalls. “After soul searching and long prayer sessions, a voice said to me, at around 3am, “Why don’t you call it Arapapa?” Arapapa tells about my life and struggles. I knelt down, kissed the ground and thanked God.”
She also wanted to honour her father with a name that features “Papa” in it, since he is the rock of her life.

“He has suffered harsh judgement for allowing me to follow my dreams. He did not agree with many who believed l was a problem child who needed straightening. He let me be and loved me through it all.”

At the time Santa was musing about the name, she was going through financial challenges but refused to accept her brothers’ help. She had gone into fashion design and modelling against her mother’s and everyone else’s will and did not wish to cause more heartaches. She chose to pursue her interest.

Starting afresh
In 2001, at a time when Santa’s basic meal was a rolex, a call came in from Kampala Casino, where she had once worked as a waitress, inviting her to present a fashion show at the Casino’s silver jubilee celebrations.

They needed her to send an invoice to process her payment but she did not have an address. For a moment, she panicked but then she knocked on the door of Florence Ndiwalana, of Beauty Tips, who granted permission to use her driveway as a model training ground.

She also rented the room above 1000 Cups, along Buganda Road. The landlord needed three months’ rent upfront for the Shs550, 000-room, which she did not have.

As a friend pointed out, there was the option of downtown Kampala where she could rent a room at Shs100, 000 for a start, but her dreams were bigger than that.

“I resisted and because downtown was not an ideal location for my kind of business. As luck would have it, Irene Kulabako, a TV anchor, was my first client. She had hosted me on a television talk show when I was still at Ziper models.”

Kulabako encouraged the designer to start her own business and in May 2001, placed an order for three suits at Shs100, 000 each, which Santa had tailored to specifications in Kiyembe.
To cater for the rest of the rent, she shared the room with a friend who imported Italian lingerie. Even when the lingerie business failed, Anzo carried on.

“God brought me an excellent prayer partner in Dr James Magara. He spent lunch breaks in my empty office praying for Arapapa to succeed.”

Riding on passion
As a girl, Anzo sketched drawings and her father would grade them, reminding her to concentrate on her studies. Most of her siblings and cousins are fine artists and their parents wanted to see a doctor or lawyer blossom in Anzo.

But in one of the corners of the house was a sewing machine her mother used. Although the young girl picked up a thing or two from it, she looked down on tailoring. After Senior Six, she was unable to join Makerere University on government sponsorship.

“My family celebrates the academia and my parents, with mummy as the choir mistress, would make us sing the Makerere anthem weekly as a reminder that we needed to work towards joining the great institution.”

Her parents paid for her education at Dolphin Fashion College. They were retiring to Moyo District and gave her the option of going with them but she chose to remain in Kampala, living with a cousin in the Makerere University flats. It was agreed that if she failed to get a job, she would board a bus to Moyo.

“I was lucky to find a job at Kampala Casino in 1995. The first time l applied, the Israeli manager told me they were not hiring. l had seen the ambience, beauty and high level of professionalism and l wanted to be part of that establishment.”

Two days later, she showed up again with a new hairstyle. On seeing her, he manager exclaimed, “You think l cannot recognise you because of the different hairstyle? You really want this job, don’t you?” At that point, a waitress was loitering around; the manager sacked her on the spot and hired Anzo. Her first salary was Shs120, 000.

“I gave my best to that job. l am the best waitress Kampala Casino has ever had,” Anzo says, with a smile of satisfaction.

At the casino, she modeled and mimed Whitney Houston songs at staff parties. This built her confidence. “I was coming from a place where everyone had a fairer complexion, was rounder, with bigger butts and the Indians and Ugandans offered them opportunities.”

The tall, skinny, dark Anzo was not offered any. In Kampala Casino, however, she was suddenly a star. They loved her height, slender build and short hair. Clients liked her, telling her bosses that they had hired a stunning model.
She had been nicknamed longido (too tall) and skeleton in primary school, and to fight nature, she hunched her shoulders; but in Kampala Casino, she was endorsed. She stood tall, and in heels.

Modelling – the ups and downs
When an international agency advertised for models, Anzo turned up for auditions and was hired. She got many contracts, which cut her waitressing job to six months. Her parents heard that their daughter was a model and was “flashing her body on stage”. This did not go down well with them.

For a very long time they were hurt. “They did not talk to me for a while. Much as this hurt I had to do all l could to ensure that my career was set,” Anzo says.

The stage did not only bring fame, it attracted love in her life.

She met a man in 1995 at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel at a fashion show. He did not like her work but she refused to quit. He never attended her shows.

When she went back to him with pictures of herself on stage, he would only ask about the men in the pictures, and why they were looking at her.

“It was so painful. He never saw me in any of my modeling pictures but only the men who apparently were attracted to me. I thought he was totally out of order.”

The relationship lasted a year. Santa says she chose her career over him because they had exhausted their relationship.

“There were no more conversations. I wanted to talk about the growth of my career and he wanted to talk marriage. I was only 21, not ready for marriage.”

She remembers that when they broke up, her friends were afraid for her. “My wallet was always full of dollars and yet l was about to lose that comfort. My decision to leave him marked the end of a beautiful life for a long time.”

Life became hard again. Anzo was also thinking of going fully into fashion designing. Apart from Peacock Fashions, all other outfits she was contracted to showcase were imported. She wanted to look different and, of course, she had her sketches.

The designer contracted a tailor in Kiyembe to bring her sketches to life. The clothes made were hers, as well as her sisters and friends who paid a fair price between Shs50, 000 and Shs70, 000.

To make ends meet, in 1999, she got a job at Inferno Pizza, in Kabalaga, where she was paid Shs35, 000 per month, which catered for her rent. The neighbourhood, in lower Muyenga, was pathetic and far from Santa’s former posh lifestyle. It comprised of 22 interfacing rooms.

“The compound was small. The units had a shared bathroom and the first time I went into that bathroom, I promised myself never to go back. I had to improvise. Ironically, some of my best moments were spent in that room. I dreamt and wrote projects there.”

She was close to Fr. Anthony Musaala, who became her prayer partner. “He prayed with me, gave me catholic prayer books to mediate upon. He believed my situations were meant to propel me to greater heights. He spoke deeply to my life and energised my system.”

At Inferno, she also worked as a salesperson at a supermarket which sold Italian foodstuff. It was there that Sylvia Owori, who then owned the Miss Uganda franchise, spotted her.

Owori had seen her on the catwalk at a fashion show in 1997 and was impressed. She offered to take the young model to London where her talents would best be used. Anzo refused, telling her she was confident she would make it in Uganda.

Soon, Edelweiss Delicatessen in Muyenga, which offered a higher salary, hired her. She was promoted every month by her Australian boss. Two months later, the overall bosses sacked the managers and offered her their position. This made her realise that she was actually capable of being whatever she wanted to be.

Ziper, where it began
After meeting Anzo at Infernal Supermarket, Owori proposed that they set up Uganda’s first professional modelling agency, promising the model a good salary.

“She paid me Shs450,000, which was good. I was able to move out of Muyenga and co-rent with my sister in a much better neighbourhood in Kansanga. I brought some of the concepts that my Scottish lecturer had helped me conceptualise, l also brought on board models like Pearl Kasujja.”

Owori also brought her concepts and models and together the two women set up Ziper Models. The business relationship lasted 16 months.
Anzo was a manager, although she did not have experience in running a corporate entity.

“I was a sales person, model trainer, and fashion model. I managed the finances, and choreographed fashion shows. I was not hired as a fashion designer, though. In 2001, I started to feel the need to practice my profession.”

That was the point at which she walked away from Zipper, back onto the streets, jobless and without a business proposal. Whatever she had submitted to Ziper Models was company property.

A gossip columnist once claimed Anzo had been fired by Owori. This upset her father who could not understand why, if she worked well, she had been sacked. That was the only phone call her father made in that year and it left her in tears. After a while, she realised that she needed to compose herself and move on.

Personal life
Since then, Santa has been doing business. At some point, her heart almost warmed up to a man living in the United States.
“We related for 16 years though the relationship failed to progress to marriage, as they had both envisioned. He was an American-Luo.”

The good news, though, is that someone else has caught her eye.
“Marriage is a beautiful thing and it should happen but I am not desperate. I feel reborn. l feel fresh. I feel like my life has just began and I am ready to launch deeper into business.”
For now, she lives alone with a beloved dog and a niece she raised from babyhood.