Today we’d like to introduce you to Aishat Badmus.
Hi Aishat, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Honestly, this has been almost nine years in the making. As a first generation British-Nigerian woman, I wanted to make African-inspired clothing long before I had children — it was just an idea I carried around, not yet attached to anything. It took becoming a mother, and specifically becoming a stay-at-home mother, for it to turn into something urgent.
I moved to the US eight years ago, and I haven’t lived close to family since. That distance changes something — heritage stops being something that happens around you naturally, through aunties and grandparents and everyday noise, and becomes something you have to consciously build and hand down yourself. As a stay-at-home mum, I’m my kids’ main female role model day in, day out, and I started to feel like I was doing them a disservice if all I gave them was distance from where they come from. I wanted them to grow up with that heritage in their hands, literally — in what they wear — not just hear about it occasionally.
So Alaina became that: a name made up of every member of my family, meaning “on us” in Arabic, with the tagline: Embraced by Culture. I launched in February 2026 on a print-on-demand model so I could stay close to the product without drowning in inventory, while juggling being the one who runs the household too. Where I am today is still early — I’ve had to step back at points because there’s only so much of me to go around — but the reason for uilding this hasn’t wavered once.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not smooth — but I don’t think I’d trust the story if it were. A lot of the hardest parts had nothing to do with fabric or shipping. Trying to build something consistent while being the primary caretaker for everyone in the house is its own quiet grind — there’s no clocking out, no separate “work self” I get to put on. Alaina gets built in the gaps.
Then there’s the operational side — real, but honestly easier by comparison. Figuring out shipping to the UK and US, working through print on demand company branding limits, making sure a print I call Ankara cloth, actually is Ankara cloth. All solvable with enough digging.
The harder struggle was quieter: I went a couple of months without posting or marketing at all. Content that’s supposed to be warm and honest is nearly impossible to fake when you’re stretched thin as the primary caretaker in the house and trying to build a legacy on top of that. Coming back to a rhythm has been slow, and I’m still rebuilding it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Alaina Childrenswear?
I am turning a nine-year-old idea into something my kids can actually wear — African-inspired childrenswear for all genders ranging from newborn through age 18, with a “Mama & Me” line so the story is shared, not just handed down. But underneath the product, what I’m really doing is standing in for the family closeness I lost when I moved to the US. I can’t give my children proximity to relatives back home, but I can give them culture in their everyday.
I’m known for keeping the brand voice raw rather than polished — real talk about motherhood and identity. What I’m most proud of is simply that it exists at all, given everything else I’m carrying as a stay-at-home-mum and primary caretaker. Most days, showing up to build this at all is the win.
What sets Alaina apart is that it isn’t a brand built around a gap in the market — it’s built around a gap in my own life. The name is my family. The mission is replacing what distance took from us. That’s not something you can manufacture after the fact.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Honestly, the small, unglamorous moments with my 3 daughters make me happiest — the everyday of it, not anything staged. Especially since I became a stay-at-home mum 1.5 years ago, there’s something about being present for all of it, even the exhausting parts, that I don’t take for granted. Having worked full-time for most of my life prior to this chapter, I now realise just how much I missed in the early years of my 2 older daughters so I try and cherish the moments I get to witness now.
Beyond that, it’s the quiet proof that Alaina is working the way I hoped it would — a stranger telling me a print reminded them of home, or that they bought something for their own child so they’d grow up seeing their culture as normal rather than occasional. Those moments make the whole thing feel worth it, because that’s the exact thing I set out to give my own kids.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alainachildrenswear.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alainachildrenswear/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61587185602876
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/thegoodmutha/
