Fashion Design and a Fresh Start: Adele Ngoy

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching our video podcast Radio Maine, in which we connect with fascinating people who have stories about creativity and the human spirit. We are sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine, and today it is my great pleasure to speak with Adele Ngoy. She is the founder and president of Women United Around the World and also owner of Antoine's Tailor Shop in Portland, Maine. And she is a teacher and instructor of sewing, which is very exciting. So I'm excited to talk to you today. Thank you for coming.

Adele Ngoy: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here with you, Lisa.

Lisa Belisle: I know you've had a lot of people interested in the work that you're doing in Portland. You've touched a lot of different people's lives since you've been here. You came here in the year 2000.

Adele Ngoy: Yes. I arrived here in the year 2000, July, 2000.

Lisa Belisle: And what was the connection to Portland?

Adele Ngoy: Portland. I didn't know Portland. I never knew it from back home, I never heard about Maine, but before I came, I came as a refugee. When you leave your country, you have to go stay in a different country from your origin country of birth. And then I went to Cameroon with the help of, I forget the organization name, but we stayed there. We stayed at the refugee camp in Cameroon for eight months. While you're there, you go through different interviews, they ask you, they have to know you before they bring you to America, and they have to know your skill. They have to know your background and your favorite place to live and all those questions. Through that process I asked them, I came with three young children. They're so young.

I was scared to come to America by myself, single mother with three kids, and I said I would like to go live in a small place where there's no crime. It's quiet, a safe place to raise kids. They'll try to convince me to go to Chicago or New York because they found already a job for me there as a fashion designer, and I was so scared. I said, I don't want to go to a big city. I chose for them to find me a small city where I can raise my kids. It's true Portland, Maine for me, and since then I don't regret being in Portland.

Lisa Belisle: How old were your children when you were leaving your country, and you came originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Adele Ngoy: My oldest was six, my second one was four, and my youngest, my boy, the day we arrived the next day was his birthday. He was two.

Lisa Belisle: So you had young children when you left where you were originally from, and you stayed in Cameroon for eight months with these young children, and then you brought them all the way to Portland, Maine.

Adele Ngoy: I can't imagine how we did that, because it was so stressed, so scary, and you don't know where you're going. You don't know what can happen, and the kids were so frustrated. They were telling me, it's your fault why we are here. They don't understand. They keep telling me we have to go back home, and the conditions they're living in, why we have to live in this condition, why don't we go home? They were asking those random questions, where's our driver? Where is this? I said, you just be patient. We're going somewhere. It's just because of the ethnic war in the country. We had to leave. It was very challenging, and arriving here with lack of language, I didn't know any word in English. I would speak only French and a dialect from my country. And the kids also when we arrived, they're so frustrated because they couldn't express themselves. They go to school, they start crying. They say, we don't want to stay here, we want to go back home. They thought it was my fault, I did that. They didn't understand until later on.

Lisa Belisle: I think about that, my children are also older now, and just having three young children all at the same time, and you were a single parent.

Adele Ngoy: Single parent.

Lisa Belisle: Raising them, just to start with that. That is so challenging. But then to have to uproot everybody, your children, yourself, and come to a completely different place, the level of strength you must have had to be able to do that.

Adele Ngoy: I don't know how I did that. Like I said before, I think it's just by the grace of God. I was just praying every day. At some point a year later I went back to the immigration office and I told them, I want to go back. Can you please send me back to my country, because I can't take this anymore. It was so hard, so challenging. I said, I can't take this. I have to go back. Luckily, I wish I could meet that lady one more time. The immigration officer, she left the desk, came and gave me a big hug, and she said, do this for your kids, not for you. Think about these kids and you're going to do it. You can do it. I was crying, sobbing, and left there. I was like, okay, now I need to try to make a decision.

I just have to take care of the kids. Forget about Adele, forget about fashion design, about all this big dream. Just be a mother taking care of the kids. I left there and then I continued. I found a job. I was working as a seamstress somewhere, and then just do the routine, bring them to school. But I always wanted the best for my kids, because I think I got the best education back home, and for me it was just the best education for my kids. From elementary school I put them in private school. I was working to pay school for them. I didn't have nothing else. All the money is just food, pay rent, pay school for the kids. They all went to Cathedral, and my oldest went to McAuley. For McAuley, she got a scholarship. It was this generous woman who paid school for her for four years at McAuley because she had a good grade. My second daughter went to Walnut Hill. It's a private performance art school. And my son went to Cheverus, because my dream was just to give them the best I could. I was doing that every day knowing I don't know what's going to happen, but just walking by every day. But I was lucky to meet so many people of Maine. Maine people, they're good people, very good people. I had a lot of support from friends I met through school for kids, through work. I had so many good friends, very supportive.

Lisa Belisle: It seems like your children would end up needing to be pretty independent and also strong themselves, because it sounds like you probably had to work a lot of hours in order to pay for private schools. And you're all coming in learning a lot of things all at the same time. Do you feel like as a result of them having to work through challenges, learning a new language, being in a new place, do you think that that has impacted them now that they are adults?

Adele Ngoy: Yes, definitely impacted their lives, now even more, being adults it impacts them very much, because I feel like they didn't grow up like a regular kid in America. Their life was more challenging. It impacts them in their life. Today they're doing good for themselves, but still they have a lot of, they used to ask themselves a lot of questions, because they didn't understand why the situation they been through. Yeah, it really impacts them, and it's still challenging for them to find themselves. They're still looking for themselves. Until now it's very challenging.

Lisa Belisle: I can understand that. That would be hard.

Adele Ngoy: Yeah, it's very hard. But I always take the positive side of everything. I know it was a lot of challenge, a lot of negative, but I'm so thankful they got a good education and they're in a safe place. I am thankful for that.

Lisa Belisle: Why did you originally go into fashion design?

Adele Ngoy: When I was young, I didn't want to do fashion design. I was like, I want to be a doctor. Until I was a teenager, in my head I said, I'm going to be a doctor. And then my dad, he passed away years ago. He was an artist. As an artist, I don't know what he saw in me. He pushed me to go to fashion school, and for me at that time I was like, I'm too smart to go to a fashion school. I thought if you go to fashion school, you just have to make stuff with your hand. You don't have to be thinking too much. You're not smart. I was so upset, I didn't like it in the beginning. And then he played with my mind. He said, okay, you just go to this school this year, and then next year we are going to try to register you to a different school, because back home you start your option, whatever you're going to do in life, in high school. That's how I went to fashion school.

The first year, the first month, I didn't talk to anybody in the class, even though the teacher was just, I didn't want to deal with anyone, because I didn't like it. I feel like this is too bad for me. I don't want to be here. But every day I go home, he encouraged me, "it's going to be fine. Just try." And then after a while, as a student in the class I just have to do what they ask me to do, and slowly I start feeling like I like it, and everything we're doing, I was the best. I was doing that better than everybody sometimes. I did my first year. At the end of the year I start making stuff. Everything they taught us in the class to do, I duplicate them at home, and then that's how I end up doing that. And then I love it so much, until I finished high school and I went to college for fashion design, and I love it. I don't regret it, thanks to my father who knew. Maybe as a parent, parents sometimes they know us better than ourselves. I think he knew. He saw something in me, which I didn't know myself.

Lisa Belisle: As you're coming to Maine with this background in fashion design, you could have gone to Chicago or New York, and I know New York is known to be a fashion center. How did you feel about bringing your fashion design background to a place like Portland, Maine, which isn't known to be a fashion design center?

Adele Ngoy: That was my big, big challenge, because I have this, I mean, America, I didn't know everywhere is the same, have to dress up, but I come to realize, man, it's very laid back. It's low key. Dressing is not really the priority. And for many years I have to observe, I have to try to find my ways, what to do. I open a shop. I was working first somewhere as a seamstress, and then I was tired of that, I could do better, and then I opened a small shop on Brighton Avenue and I started designing things, but I realized it's not the culture in Maine, it was challenging. And then a few years later I have to close. Sometimes I'll tell people I make this fleece jacket, because I try to create something to adapt for the climate for Maine. I come up with this idea to make the fleece jacket very fashionable, and then I'll be wearing them somewhere and everybody loved them.

We love your jacket, and they'll say, I made it. They look at me like I'm crazy. They don't get it, like how come you can make this? They don't understand it. And I stayed with that store for a little bit while, and then the recession came to the country, the economy was bad. I have to close. I went back to my previous job. This time I went back as a manager for the department of alteration, and that was good for me. I went there and I said, I'm going to be here just for a few years, because in my head I would like to have something for myself. And that's how I was there for five years as a manager. I learned a lot. Even when I had my store, people used to make comments, say she does a very good service. You want anything to be made, it's perfect, but customer service, she doesn't know much about that. Of course I didn't know how to manage customer service in America, and that was a very good thing for me to go back as a manager for those five years. It helped me a lot to know how to do customer service, and to deal with how to manage staff, how to manage people you work with, and to understand better the American culture. Women especially, working with wedding gowns. It was a bridal shop, a big bridal shop. I learned a lot. That was a very good thing for me to go back there as a manager. It prepared me to become who I am today.

Lisa Belisle: So you now are the founder and president of Women United Around the World, and you own Antoine's Tailor Shop. Tell me about each of those different roles.

Adele Ngoy: When I left the place I was working, at that time, I came here myself with my kids, but the fear to be myself, and I was married with my ex-husband back home. But when I arrive here I say, I can't raise these kids by myself, somebody has to come, and I didn't see myself married to another guy with young kids. I was so scared, and then we start, we had problems back home, and I work hard and make him come. He's the father of my kids. He came, so I need help for the kids. When he arrived here, it didn't work with him. A few years later we get divorced, and I stayed myself like 10 years, and then after 10 years I got remarried with an American guy, my actual husband. So at that time when I left, I bought the store on Congress Street, Antoine's Tailor Shop.

That store been there more than four years. It's been there forever. And then the owner was retiring, and he was looking for somebody to buy the store, and they contact me. It was just a perfect, perfect fit for me. I bought the store, and it was just a tailoring shop, and I change it. I still keep the name. I prefer to keep the name for this long so people get familiar with me and they know I'm still there, and now I'm ready. I'm changing the name soon, it's going to be Adele and Antoine, but I'm working on changing the name. I still do alteration, but I sell more, I sell imported suits from Europe, slim cut or European style shoes and suits for men, some pieces for women, mostly I do for men, and I do a lot of alteration, and I do some design for people who want that. For my business now, that's what I do.

So the organization, Women United Around the World, when I arrived here I was just observing, and where I was working, we had problems to find good seamstresses. Everybody coming, they said they know how to sew, but it wasn't that professional sewing, and they keep bothering me in my heart, and I was like, I need to do something. Also back home I was involved a lot with women's activity, and we celebrate a lot. Women's International Day, it's a big thing in Congo. After a few years being here I was like, everybody, when it's March 8th, my friends all over the world they're going to call me, are you doing something? I say, no, there is nothing here. They don't celebrate the event here. And one day I decide to celebrate International Women's Day.

I come up with the idea to have an international fashion show. I'll present a few pieces from my collection and invite all the women coming from different parts of the world to present their traditional outfits so people can know our tradition, where we come from. And again, in my head I know, all the women, no matter where you come from, we are all connected in fashion. All the women love fashion. And then I organize that first year fashion show, international fashion show, to celebrate International Women's Day. It was kind of successful. I had a hundred people show up in this room I rented, and it was so much fun and people love it. And from there, a lot of women come to me, they want to help me, they want to do something with this, and that's how we create Women United Around the World. And through the organization we start helping immigrants come for integration, connecting them with local women, and then start teaching them sewing.

That's how I start doing the sewing through the organization. And I did the sewing since I opened the organization in 2010, but the sewing class started 2012. I did that from 2012 until 2018, and then after Covid I closed. I couldn't do it, and I was doing all this for free. I didn't know I can get help. I just get, because now we starting having the event, the celebration of International Women's Day. Every year we're going to do this. Now we become a little bit bigger. We have more than 500 show up to the event, and now we do that at the Italian Heritage Center around the month of March. And then the money we get there, I'm going to use it, I bought the sewing machine, I got the staff to teach, and I never get paid for it.

All these years I just do it and train women, and I had a great experience with those classes, and there is a need in the community for that. I have so many women today, they're working as seamstresses, it become their career from the training they got. I even have a lady who came, she's from my country, she was a lawyer back home, but when she come here she can't practice, lack of language, and she's not allowed to practice with that diploma. She came to me, took my training, today she's a professional seamstress. And that's what I'm doing. And now after Covid, this year was the first year we went back, because at some point I get kind of discouraged and tired, I say I don't want to do this anymore. But it's hard because it's something in my heart. It's just dear in my heart. I couldn't give up on it. I'll come back to it now. This year we did another event, it was very, very successful also. And now we are starting again, the school.

Lisa Belisle: How many students do you have starting up this year?

Adele Ngoy: So far I have 16 students registered so far, but I'm trying to go slowly, and now I'm writing grants, so if I get more funds I'll get more students, because I'll have more trainers, so we can expand the class and it can be available for anyone who is interested.

Lisa Belisle: How long does it take to get the type of training that you're offering?

Adele Ngoy: The training I'm offering is going to take nine months. You can come even though you never touch a machine, you can come see us. We start from teaching you the different parts of the machine, how to thread the sewing machine, and then we can go through all those different stitches, different seams, all the technical of sewing. We're going to focus more on sewing, not too much on design, a little bit design in the advanced class, but mostly the beginning is going to be just the technique of sewing. We have, like I say, nine months, three months for beginner, three months for intermediate, and three months for advanced.

Lisa Belisle: Is there a lot of need for people to learn how to sew? Are there a lot of jobs for people who are seamstresses or tailors right now?

Adele Ngoy: I think there is a need, because if I speak to people around me, people in Maine, mostly people say my grandma used to sew, my mom used to make her clothes. Now there's not any mom who makes clothes. And there's jobs. I think because of lack of workers in that field, business people, there is no interest to them, because they don't have workers. If they know they can find professional workers, I think there will be more jobs. And right now there's jobs. I have a student worker. I asked more students to work at Sugar. She's in Biddeford. She does beautiful gowns. Some of my students work there, and there is a lot of, I did some research. There is jobs, they can work at L.L. Bean, and it's just there's not many who are trained. There's not many who do that. Also in my head now, fashion become very challenging, because everything we are wearing, it's like one use, you wear one time and then it's no good anymore, because everything coming from overseas. And if we train more people, it bring back the business to the United States. I think we can do better. I'm thinking just bigger, see that we can train more people so we can start making our own clothes like people used to do years ago.

Lisa Belisle: One of the things that comes to me as you're talking about this is that we have ended up making people fit into clothes that maybe don't flatter them, because they have to be very specific sizes and they have to look a very specific way. But if we were able to offer options because they're more personalized to the individual, then that could end up being really important. It could really contribute to people's confidence.

Adele Ngoy: Yes, exactly. That's a good point. I've seen that with a lot of women. I designed stuff for them, especially a lot of American women, they don't have experience of a custom design, and it fits you like a glove because it's customized for you. There is no alteration. You don't need alteration after it's made for you. But whatever we buy from the store, there are standard measurements made. They are just for, and we all have different bodies. When a woman wears something that is customized for her, it gives a lot of confidence. I've seen that a lot. They're so happy, because first of all, they choose the fabric they want, they design what always they have in their mind. I would love to have this, and it makes them very confident. Self-esteem.

Lisa Belisle: In your current business, it sounds like you're focusing more on weddings and wedding dresses. If you had the opportunity to get back into design work that really was important to you, what would that look like? What do you like to design?

Adele Ngoy: I like to design special occasion, one-on-one, like a mother of the bride dress, mother of the groom, design dresses for different special occasions. I love that. And I would love to do again my collection of fleece jackets. I would love to reproduce that as a kind of production, and that's where if I train more people, I'll hire them myself so they can work for me. And yeah, I would love to do that. It's so exciting, and I love to do personal design, one-on-one for people. It's so nice to see just the fabric from nowhere, and somebody would never have the experience, all that process. I have so many customers, so happy, and it makes them feel good and feel beautiful.

Lisa Belisle: So it sounds like if you can get people who are qualified to do the sewing.

Adele Ngoy: I can bring my business to a different level too.

Lisa Belisle: Do you ever return back to the Congo?

Adele Ngoy: That's a good question. I returned back after 23 years. It was just a couple years ago. I went there with my husband. It was very emotional. I was happy to be back. He was crying every day, everywhere, seeing my people, the life they have now and the country where it is, because I left because of ethnic war, and since then the war still continues somehow, some part of the country. The country is not doing its best, it's not in a good condition, and people have not very good life. I was happy to see the people, but sad to see that, and to see the life we have here and over there. I was like, this is not fair for them. And I can say here, I'm thankful to be in America. In America we take everything sometimes for granted, because we don't have no idea what other people are going through. If people can just think and see the condition other people live in, I don't think we're going to be wasting what we wasting. We are not going to be complaining. We complain, all those stuff we do, I think we'll do better and we appreciate better what we have here.

Lisa Belisle: Do you think that people might come to the United States after talking to you back home?

Adele Ngoy: Everybody wants to live everywhere in the world. I think everybody loves the American life. That's why you see this inflation of a lot of immigrants, because everybody want to come here because of the lifestyle we have here and the safety. We are safe and we have good life in America. We think it's hard, but no, we have a good life in America compared to other places in the world. We are blessed in America.

Lisa Belisle: If you were to talk to someone who was like yourself, who was newly to the United States, and they were asking your advice about the things that they could do to be as happy as possible, what would be your advice? What would be your words to them?

Adele Ngoy: If somebody is new here, I'll tell them to be patient with themselves. Don't feel guilty for anything you feel, because sometimes people, they compare your previous life and the life here. Just walk through. First of all, if you are like me, learn English. That's the key. Go to school, learn English. I used to say, whatever God did, the difference where I were before, it's going to still make the difference everywhere I go. That was my belief, and I believe inside me somehow, one day I'm going to have okay life compared to the beginning. And I'll tell people, just be patient, learn English, you'll be okay. You're going to make it. It takes time. You have to be patient. I encourage them to have good friends. If you surround yourself with good friends, don't stay just in your community, your only community. Create a new community with American friends, through school, through work, and then it's going to help you to grow, and you're going to make it.

Lisa Belisle: That's very good advice. Well, Adele, I appreciate your coming in today.

Adele Ngoy: Thank you very much, Lisa. It's a pleasure and honor for you to have me.

Lisa Belisle: Oh, I think the honor is all mine.

Adele Ngoy: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching our video podcast, Radio Maine, where we celebrate creativity and the human spirit. Today we've been speaking with Adele. She is the founder and president of Women United Around the World and also the owner of Antoine's Tailor Shop. And I suspect that you are going to see much more from Adele with her fashion design, and I really wish you all the best in the next level of your business.

Adele Ngoy: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very much.