Gertrude Akosua Gyemfuah Awumee, is the creative director and CEO of Trudie Art and Craft. Trudie Art and Craft is an indigenous Ghanaian company which deals in the production of all kinds of bags from the scratch. They engineer and produce hand made bags using leather, interesting and exotic African prints and jute to produce user friendly bags.
According to Gertrude Gyemfuah, any kind of bag you can think of Trudie Art and Craft are able to make them. Ranging from instrument cases, device cases, waist vest for dogs, bag packs, travel bags, duffle bags, wallet, and anything that comes to mind when you think of bags is what Trudie Art and Craft does, “we design, engineer and produce the bags from the very basics” she reiterated.
What makes Gertrude story outstanding is that she together with her team produces classy and world class quality bags that could be used by anybody and not only Africans. And for Africans you’ll be proud to wear a bag from Trudie Art and Craft because it excellently tells the African story with class and taste.
According to Gertrude, her sudden interest in bag making started at the art centre in Accra. While at the Takoradi Technical University Gertrude had an opportunity to do her internship at the art centre in Accra to polish her skills of doing batik tie and dye. And while at the art centre she noticed that some workers there were making hand made bags with fabrics and she got fascinated with how they were cutting the patterns and stitching them into bags. Gertrude was captivated by how the fabrics were cut and moulded into beautiful functional bags. Then she thought to herself that if these guys make these bags, then she can also take up the idea, polish it up and make the bags trendy and contemporary for the young and millennial generation. And that was how her interest for bags started, since the day Gertrude discovered her new interest she will always pass by the the bag makers and help them in ironing and sometimes cutting of fabrics and in the process she was picking up some skills from them.
Luckily for Gertrude she had some sowing skills although, because she’s not being practicing for some time she forgot most of the things but coming again into contact with the guys sowing was refreshing for her. While growing up Getrude’s parents noticed that she was artistic so they supported her with
drawing and painting resources. And they enrolled her in a sowing shop when she graduated from Junior High School thus the gap year between waiting for her results to enter senior high school that was how she learnt sowing. After the internship Gertrude started watching videos on youtube to further learn how the bags were made. After watching these videos she decided to put to practice all the things she has learnt. So she tried making duffle bags for herself and it came out pretty well. So she started using it and when people saw it they were impressed and asked how she got it and if they could also buy one. And that was Trudie Art and Craft was born.
Getrude started running Trudie art and craft officially in July 2017 on campus six months to her graduation. She started the business with a capital of about 100 cedis and made some bags which were bought by some friends of hers. Since then Trudie art and craft has not looked back. Gertrude now has three employees and together they produce world class and quality hand made bags with a combination of leather and exotic African prints.
In the past 4 years Trudie art and craft has churned out some incredible designs that did really well on the market like the Obolo laptop bag, the Mini Eyra travel bag, Setiam series of laptop bags, wallets and purses. Some of her bags have so far been exported to Australia, UK, US, Norway, and Canada.
For the outstanding quality, aesthetic value and the impact that Trudie art and craft is making in the Ghanaian fashion sector Gertrude has received several awards.
Brief Biography of Gertrude Akosua Gyemfuah Awumee
Gertrude completed Takoradi university in the year 2017 with first class honours and top of her class, where she studied textile designing and technology. She also studied visual arts at Mfantsiman Girls School, in Saltpond, Ghana. Gertrude is a certified textile artist, and has always being an art person. Gertrude had her national service at Textile Ghana Ltd (GTP), where she had the chance to put use most of the things she learnt in school. She also got to see most of the machines she studied about in school, but never seen before. According to Gertrude she learnt a lot about human relations and administrative management during her national service.
Gertrude’s Final words: Believe in God and trust your ideas and future into his hands. Also believe in yourself, believe in your dreams and aspiration, be determined, be gritty and be a go getter , be thirsty to see your dreams materialise. Make sure you have a blue print of your design, thus where you want to be and don’t feel lazy to learn from others. Humble yourself to learn skills from any kind of person, don’t think you’re too big or better than them. Humility is key in the pursuit of your dreams.
You get in touch with Gertrude Akosua Gyemfuah Awumee on IG @trudie_art_craft Facebook @Trudie Art & Craft Call / WhatsApp @ +233 547 304 323
This article appeared on limitlessmotivation1 and is published here for educational purpose
