Photographer: Mare Milin for Elle Croatia
I had a pleasure to interview Ivan Badanjak, part of the VAIN designer team together with Timy Šarec. Ivan is part of a truly a hard working, business focused , tech savvy and creative duo. He shared with me his vision for this young and perspective fashion brand. Read the interview below to find out more!
What
is the meaning of your brand name – VAIN?
VAIN
is the anagram of my name – Ivan. Before I had a brand I was signing my designs
with my first name however when I started to collaborate with Timy we decided
to play with a logo which can describe my creative work to date.
How
did you decide to launch a brand together? How do you get along and collaborate
creatively?
Three
years ago we founded Studio Ploha in which we collaborate creatively in the
area of fashion, video and web design. We are working on the idea of founding a
fashion brand together for a long time now, it just took some time for idea to
mature and develop. VAIN fashion brand is the result of our creative maturity.
We are working together on all areas of brand development and business from
creation to realization and final product.
Photographer: Mladen Šarić | Models: Helena Babić and Tamara Pernar | Make up: Saša Joković
How
would you describe the ‘ideal’ VAIN women?
A
VAIN woman is a modern woman who uses clothing to accentuate her beauty.
In one of the interviews you said that VAIN is
the result of a long-term planning, how big of a risk is to launch a brand new
fashion brand in struggling economy on such a small market as Croatia is?
We
cannot influence on the economic situation. We felt ready and decided that we
are mature enough to take this next step. Good ideas do not wait for good
economic circumstances, you are ready for them or you are not. Croatian
economic situation we try to offset with hard work, professionalism, persistence
and creativity.
What
is the price range you have set for your brand?
We
define the price of our pieces based on the investment into good quality
fabrics and quality of making. We think that we have set the realistic prices
considering Croatian economic environment as we are currently focused on
domestic market. We plan to expand our product offering to shoes and
accessories as well but this will depend heavily on finances.
Photographer: Mladen Šarić | Models: Helena Babić and Tamara Pernar | Make up: Saša Joković
Do
you particularly admire any of the Croatian or international fashion designers?
Absolutely!
There is many of them. We are equally inspired and fascinated by costume
designers and fashion designers. When working creatively it is equally
important to be original as it is to be up to date with latest industry trends
even though the goal is to always try to come up with something new and fresh.
On
last season’s Cro-a-Porter fashion event you have shown your first, quite
successful collection which got positive reviews from fashion media. Do you
plan to continue to do seasonal collection and show season ahead fashion shows
or maybe like some international designer design pieces which can be worn
across seasons?
Currently
we are working on a new collection which we will show on Fall edition of
Cro-a-Porter. Fashion shows are part of fashion industry tradition which we
love so we will continue to show seasonal collections but in the future we
would like to make our shows available to wider audience by live streaming them
online. In between seasons we plan to launch capsule pre-season collections
featured by smaller campaigns.
Photographer: Mladen Šarić | Models: Helena Babić and Tamara Pernar | Make up: Saša Joković
Now
when Croatia became an EU Country, how fast do you plan to start selling on
international markets and what is your sales and marketing strategy for it?
Our
strategy is to first build a good base for our brand on local market. We want
to create national recognizable fashion brand as a priority. In the next three
years we plan to redirect part of the profit and invest it into showing on
international fashion fairs in fashion capitals in order to present our brand
to other, bigger markets. In parallel we plan to continue to develop strong
logistic and production so we could source our expansion properly and professionally.
Based
on your work so far you seem to be taking your brand building in a more
professional and planned way then some of your more experienced colleagues
especially when it comes to investing in marketing, PR and online platforms for
promoting your brand.
Building
a unique, recognizable and modern fashion brand is our imperative. Working in
Studio Ploha, building our clients brand we gained a certain experience which
enabled us to get the clear vision for direction, look, feel and direction for
our own brand.
We
present VAIN as modern European brand which successfully balances in between commercial
and creative out of the box product. Carefully planned promotion is the most
important tool for successful brand positioning on which we collaborate with
top industry professionals.
What
is your near future and long term plan for the brand development?
Our
daily work has become extremely dynamic so our plans are being executed in a
very short time period. One of our goals is opening our official selling location
in boutique store ROBA in Zagreb. This is a big challenge and an opportunity
for us as we will get to communicate directly with our clients and get their
feedback.
Photographer: Mladen Šarić | Models: Helena Babić and Tamara Pernar | Make up: Saša Joković
Also, we are preparing Fall/Winter 13’ collection which keeps us
creatively obsessed for weeks now. In near future we plan to also design men’s collection,
start presenting our brand to international markets and expand our product
portfolio to accessories, shoes, jewelry and perfumes.
Photographer: Mladen Šarić | Models: Helena Babić and Tamara Pernar | Make up: Saša Joković
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