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A new brand, a new life

REPORTCarlos Primo

The pandemic and its commercial impact have put the world of design in check, but some creators have made a virtue of necessity to reinvent themselves. It has not been easy, although it has been essential.

FOUND AN ONLINE STORE, open the doors of the studio, manufacture masks, offer games to customers and even give a Copernican twist to your business plan: in recent months, the pandemic has precipitated gestures and decisions that were unthinkable just a few months ago . Below, six independent Spanish fashion and accessory companies aimed totally or partially at men tell how they have had to manage to adapt to a sector that has changed forever. Among its conclusions there are some certainties, such as the solidity of craftsmanship, made in Spain and specialization in specific products and styles. In a world where everything can evaporate in a matter of minutes, the tangible matters more than the story. Even though, to achieve this, these firms have had to redesign their business model and investigate creative ways to sell online without neglecting their clients in Spain, Europe, the United States and Asia. The heroes and heroines of these six stories are small entrepreneurs who have built their brands in a space as appealing as the catwalk: that of affordable luxury, contemporary aesthetics, material precision and that sustainability that has more to do with close processes and transparent than with big speeches. That is why they are equipped for the world to come.

Steve Mono: "The time for brands that do everything is over"

Gonzalo Fonseca, founder of Steve Mono, a gourmet footwear and accessories firm made in Spain, is used to dealing with complexity. But what he has experienced these six months has gone beyond all his expectations. “I remember arriving from the Paris fairs in February. There was a weird atmosphere. Then they decreed the confinement. I spent 15 days out of place, but I told myself that this could not end me.

The year 2020 was going to be especially sweet for this company that became famous for its minimalist and architectural leather goods and that three years ago introduced its first footwear collection. Today his Franciscan sandals and moccasins make up 90% of his sales volume. They are made in workshops in Cáceres and Alicante and are sold in stores in Japan, Korea, China or Singapore. "A lot of people know us more as a shoe company," he explains. That is why the momentary pause of the confinement allowed him to relaunch a project that he had been delaying due to the hustle and bustle of everyday life: his online store. "We had many doubts because we were afraid of not having enough stock. But we decided to embrace that concept that, deep down, has a lot to do with us. We launch sandals on request, with waiting times of between seven and ten working days. Sometimes you have to wait for things, and nothing happens. We have learned to get rid of complexes". Fonseca assures that, whatever happens, the pandemic has already transformed the rhythm of the sector. "The system had been out of date for a long time," he explains. "You don't need so many fairs a year, or so many seasons, or so much time in advance. Before, stores bought large quantities at once. Today they make smaller orders and repeat them every month." Balance, he says, has to do with size. "The time for brands that do everything is over," he says. "It is impossible to be small and do everything well. You have to be a specialist. Offer a calm, calm product."

Act Series, from disaster to a new shopping experience

For three months, the Act Series collection for this summer remained trapped in a closed factory due to the lockdown. And that, in a firm specialized in footwear as purely summery as the Mallorcan espadrille, was almost equivalent to disaster. When the boxes arrived - the company produces around 14,000 pairs per season - already in June, Isabel Rotger, the founder and creative director of the brand, found that it was too late to send them to stores in the United States and Asia, which they represent 98% of their sales volume. “I realized that in our offices there was space to try to sell them here,” she explains. She came to an agreement with two other local companies, Datura and Suro Swimwear, to create an open space that they called Summer Studio and that throughout June, July and August has tried to turn an excess of stock into an unprecedented shopping experience. Also for its promoters. "Knowing your customer helps a lot," she says Rotger, "it's important to see what they think of the product, what they choose." If the evolution of the pandemic allows it, the studio will remain open throughout the year to revitalize the commercial, creative and social fabric of an island that is much more than a holiday destination. Especially now that Act Series has set out to conquer the remaining months of the year to tackle. Her first winter collection has debuted with a warmer version of footwear - Balearic morphology, Spanish leather and contemporary aesthetics - that Rotger conceived when she lived in Berlin.

Biis: “We realized that many people would buy our brand if it were more accessible”

When fashion designer Rubén Gómez and jeweler Sara Lasry founded Biis, their reference did not come from fashion, but from cinema. “We said that we wanted to be like the first Steven Spielberg, who had very rare movies and also reached every house with ET.” Under a different way of understanding unisex, its most popular pieces are jewels that imitate everyday objects. Earrings that evoke staples, stationery clips or beverage can rings, necklaces that look like they've just been ripped off the hood of a high-end car... “We're never obvious enough,” says Gómez.

When the state of alarm was decreed in Spain, in Biis they were already part of the duel. 80% of its market is in Asia. “At the end of January we started getting order cancellations and payment holds,” he recalls. "So when the lockdown came, we were past the slump and the only thing left for us was to react." While companies generated content to connect with their audience on social media, at Biis they asked their fans to be the ones to produce their own pieces inspired by their aesthetic. "They were tutorials where we laughed at our own signature," says Gómez. The next step was to put a spin on another icon of the pandemic: designer masks. "The first thing that came to mind was a replica of the pharmacy surgical one, but made of cotton, in a joke of ours." Shortly after they began to produce new models dyed by themselves with the tie dye technique. “It was part therapy because it kept us entertained all summer, but it also made us realize that a lot of people would buy our brand if it was more accessible.” His next steps, he assures, are in that line.

Dos Studio: "Say 'no' to the tyranny of producing for producing"

"We don't want to throw away t-shirts and make a fortune, or be the Jiminy Cricket of the system. But we do want to have a small speculative laboratory of things that interest us." Architect Valerio Canals explains the raison d'être of Dos Studio, the menswear and objects company that he founded in 2017 together with designer Moisés Nieto. They began with a small selection of garments and decorative objects, but in the collection that they have just presented, that reflection rushes towards more ambitious horizons. Clothes and objects are made from reused fragments. A patchwork that speaks of memory, upcycling and healthy slowness. "Reformulating the brand has to do with reformulating the times and saying no to the tyranny of producing for the sake of producing," explains Canals. "Our way of being in the world is not very sustainable, and this is not an apocalyptic reflection, but a constructive one. A wake-up call." Moisés Nieto, one of the strongest names in recent Spanish fashion, adds that the pandemic has only reaffirmed what they had been thinking for three years. In his case, he was also director of the IED Madrid School of Fashion. Sustainability is the base. "Students have it very internalized," he explains. "They think about consuming less fabrics and buying less. They are not satisfied with finding a good wool. This change is going to force us all to make decisions much sooner than we imagine."

The Seëlk: “Being an online project has saved us”

On February 27, the doors of The Seëlk's first store opened on Calle de Padilla, 35 in Madrid. Two weeks later they had to close down due to the state of alarm. The team took this jug of cold water with philosophy. "Being an online project has saved us," explains Gonzalo Yuste, the co-founder, along with Enrique Solís, of this menswear firm that has put together a paradoxically successful dialectic pirouette: using technology to reach a type of man "who knows that within ten years old he will still be wearing the same sweater". The name of the brand refers to silk because it was born as a tie house, but this year it has expanded perspectives and products. The Seëlk produces shirts, knitwear, trousers, jackets and accessories in workshops in Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United Kingdom. "We design ourselves, we work with our own pattern maker and our suppliers hate us and love us at the same time," jokes Yuste, alluding to that balance between headaches and satisfactory results that characterizes the tête à tête of clothing. The store serves as a dressing room for undecided customers, but the base is an e-commerce business designed to reach that customer between 30 and 50 years old who does not want stylistic risks but does not resign himself to dressing in the same men's store as his father. Almost an oxymoron that, in his case, is resolved in realistic cuts and prudent but contemporary tones. They sensed that there was a market niche and they were not wrong. "Sales are 20% above our pre-pandemic forecast."

Rroad. The formula of the three "r's": reduce, reuse, recycle

“I never imagined that I would end up setting up a fashion brand. I was an expert lawyer in banking regulation and worked on the 50th floor of an office tower. But one day I realized that I had to rethink everything. Pepe Otaola talks like this about the moment when he decided to change course. He went to work for an NGO in Palestine and there he became convinced that climate change was not a matter of rhetoric. “There are millions of climate refugees. People who can't farm, who can't drink water,” he recounts. It was then, back in Madrid, that he ran into Nicolás Yllera, an advertising man with experience in the fashion sector who was thinking about a conversation with the sustainability director of a luxury group. "It is very difficult to change things from those companies that we mythologize," says Yllera. "Then I spoke with Pepe and saw that there was a way to try it with our own rules." Its own rules are the three “r”s (reduce, reuse, recycle) that give its name to the fashion company that began in August 2019 and that, despite all the obstacles, launched last spring with a first model of sweater made with recycled fiber and that can be recycled again. They distrust the word sustainability because it is often misused. "It doesn't make sense for firms that are the antithesis to give us sustainability classes," says Yllera. "We want to do things better, in a more complicated and honest way." Launching a brand in the midst of the pandemic has interestingly provided them with an audience more receptive to their message of empathy. They are almost out of stock, and they already have more garments prepared that will end up forming a serene, practical and respectful wardrobe. The hopeful sign of the new times.

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