Fady Rostom: Clothing brand owner who owns and wears only one T-shirt

Around the same time, he created Bonk, a clothing, accessories and stationery brand that you may know for its quality T-shirts. It started against the backdrop of youth and rebellion, to show big brands that young local entrepreneurs can also make quality products. He adds: “In any case, every designer, at some point in his life, seeks to make a shirt.”

The brand has survived, or as Fadi humbly says, it is “washing its face.”

He is a juggler with rubber and ceramic balls. Some falls. Some cannot be allowed to fall. “The rest can fall and bounce back,” he says. “But the parenting ball can't drop.”

I always loved art as a child. My mother was an architect even though she did not practice architecture. But you can always see how she used design and art throughout the house. She had the art for it. He was always very methodical.

She is an inventor and has always solved household problems by first drawing solutions: How do you solve the problem of knocking on a door using design? How can a cheese refinery be improved to be more efficient? Little hacks like that. I watched her do it all and was impressed by the ingenuity of it all. I was mostly drawn to architecture even though I studied civil engineering at the University of Nairobi.

My friend was an engineering professor, so he's very analytical. Engineering is very systematic in terms of how it solves problems. To be creative you have to be curious and see ordinary things differently. You have to be almost okay with observing, following your intuition, questioning things, and observing because those are the components of creativity.

Nothing has changed. (Chuckles) I don't think I was noticeably weird. We – my older brother and I – didn't grow up in a home you could imagine; Creative and full of artistic expressions. Our house was very quiet and very strict. Since mzee is academic, academics, order and discipline are the priority. Our time was organized and calculated until the last minute; Study time for 55 minutes and then a five-minute break. This task is for 1 hour and 30 minutes break. It was military. We only realized that there was a flaw in this system when Al-Mazi told us that God had given us vacations so that we could study. (Chuckle) That's when we said, “Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right.” (Laughter) But yes, we studied hard and art was the most interesting subject for me. When I was 17, my father lent me money to go to New York for three months. There I lived in a hostel, did odd jobs, and made enough money to come back with a bike, a computer that I would use to start designing, and enough money to pay him back. Thank God he returned half the amount to me. That journey taught me independence and how to make my own way.

I think by plane. (Smile) Anyway, my father came to establish the Department of Surveying and Photogrammetry at the University of Nairobi in the early 1970s. It was a short two-year contract that ended up being renewed 20 times. At some point, he returned to meet my mother and bring her back, probably on the same plane.

You know, they call us “third culture kids” because even though the place you grew up identifies as home, you still stand out like you're from somewhere else. When I go to Egypt, I can relate to some things, but I always feel like a foreigner there even though I can integrate. I have relatives there.

I love baking. Bread is the staple food in Egypt. I love baking. Carbs are fun, they're delicious. So, the word for bread in Egyptian is “ish baladi,” which, coincidentally or not, also means “life.” So, yes, bread is a serious thing.

I enjoy knowing things. I like to understand the root causes of things and understand the complexities. This is what we have found ourselves doing for the better part of the last two decades at Ark Africa; Absorbing a lot of information or challenges, finding patterns and creating clarity. You could say my strength is strategy. The strategy is either problem-driven or innovative, an inner feeling, or a motive. Imagine the people at Apple who said, “Typing on these Blackberries is a problem, let's get a touch screen.” Someone must have said: “Touch screen?” I will never work. Now imagine another room in which someone asked: “How can we have a faster horse?” Someone – Henry Ford – must have said, “Why can't we build a horse, can't we build a car?” Someone in the room: “What?” So, one of these examples is a problem solver and the other is innovative.

Despite our youthful appearance, we wear old hats because we started this company 19 years ago. In 2006, I was creating websites and software for Radio Africa Group where I met Mwangi Kirubi, one of the company's founders. We learned that Equity Bank had just transitioned from a building society to a bank and wanted to grow in other areas of Kenya. They were not seen as a luxury bank and hence luxury agencies were not very keen to work with them.

They wanted a campaign, a documentary. We teamed up with another guy called Angelo Kinyua (no longer with the company) and got the job done. Our company name came from our names, Angelo, Rustam, Kirubi. We started out doing advertising for a couple of years before moving into this deeper world of design and strategy. We now sit in a unique place, right in the middle of management consulting and advertising agencies. This space is called Strategy and Innovation.

I needed a hobby. The hobby became a job. It was also founded on youth, a rebellious product to show big brands that I don't need to have big muscles to make quality goods. Also, every designer at some point in their life wants to make a t-shirt. It went well, surprisingly. He's still here, washing his face. It keeps us connected to popular culture, which is great. It also helps us experiment with product design.

(Laughs) I don't have any other clothes, Biko, it's just these. So, my six year old son's classmate also noticed the same thing. He was like: “Why do you always wear that shirt?” (chuckles) The beauty of wearing the same colors every day is that my mornings aren't characterized by asking myself a single question; What should I wear? As my wife says, I'm the most complicated and simple man she knows. The downside is that nosy journalists are always asking if I have other clothes.

It had the biggest impact on my contours and hairline. Our son is six years old, and our daughter is three and a half years old. Parenthood is fun, wonderful, and exhausting. These little humans who are full of energy and mischief and for whom you would do anything. You see them growing and you see yourself in it. It's very satisfying. They taught me patience and moderation. I spent a lot of time cycling before my kids came along, but once I had our first child, I stopped.

From the beginning, we made a very intentional decision to be there for our children; So don't live nanny. We wash and cook them. Yes, we love hardship, it's a small price to pay for the reward of being there to watch them grow. When they get older I will go back to riding a bike. I see life as juggling many balls, some of which can fall and bounce and some of which cannot. Raising children is a ball that does not want to fall because it will not bounce. Everything else is possible.

(Laughs) No, she's from here.

I may have OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), which I prefer to call OCE: the E is for enjoyment. I like accuracy. If something is wrong at work, or anywhere, I will notice it and enjoy correcting it.

I love improving things and it's not just aesthetics or visual alignment, I mean everything! As a society we have fallen into the trap of celebrating mediocrity. We have potholes, someone comes with stones and smashes them there, and the road is repaired. we are happy. This road will not last two weeks. We have to be strict with ourselves and be more demanding. Comfort zones are dangerous.

Our society cannot develop when we refuse to want the best for ourselves. Take something as the way we behave in public queues, jumping a queue reflects how we treat and think about each other. Interfering with roads at the expense of other sick road users is a sign of dishonesty. And if you're the kind of person who lacks integrity on the road, you're unlikely to be a different person at work or at home.

Sleeps. We have just passed the point where babies wake up several times a night. So sleep is golden. I got a new pillow, that's how serious it is, Pico. I'm also trying to get a new balance at work. We're about 20 years old, we do the structured, analytical side but we also have the creative side and so we find a good synergy in what we call creative strategy. I'm also trying to improve my role here, which is to work less at work and more at work.

See how you reacted to my wardrobe? Maybe I have more colors in my wardrobe.