Designer quickie: eNVy room

For a while now I am following the work of this two young designers: Vjeko Franetović and Nikica Ivančević and their, now well established brand eNVy room. However first time I wrote about them was fairly recently when I introduced photos from one of their campaign shoots. 

What I like the most about this brand is their business sense, strong focus on their core product and the fact that they are personally so in-touch with their customer via all of their communication channels from column, website to live communication on Facebookand Twitter.

 I definitely agree with the well known fact that dress is the best one piece outfit which almost always makes us look elegant and well put together. So eNVy room's focus product is very well on point ;) Here comes the interview...

Is there a fashion brand or an individual designer who you admire in creative or in a business sense?

We cannot differentiate one specific person, but we definitely follow and observe what is going on in the industry overall locally and internationally.

 Who is an average eNVy Room customer? What is the price range of your pieces and what are the best selling ones?

 Our basic product is the dress. Primarily evening dress and wedding dress, so our average customer is the women seeking  such dress for a special occasion, mostly weddings and prom dresses, while for example in Wien the demand for such dress is much higher.

There are three main price ranges: short dresses ( 2,000 to 4,000 HRK), long dresses (4500 – 6500 HRK) and wedding dresses for which price ranges corespond to long and short dresses accordingly with most expensive pieces ranging up to 1,000 Euros.

   Which other companies outside of the fashion industry did you cooperate with?

Last year, we have colaborated with the biggest Croatian consumer goods store Konzum and the Libresse. Product design has always been our area of interest, we really enjoy doing it.

Do you think that designer needs to have formal education in order to be successful in his work? Does fashion designer need  to be talented or rather a good business person to succeed?

Formal education cannot harm, it is desirable actually, but it's definitely not a guarantee for success. In order to be successful in todays economy it isn't enough just to be creative and talented, one must also have a good business knowledge.

You two are one of the rare Croatian designers who seem to have well developed PR strategy: blog, Facebook, Twitter, column, website etc. Are you administering these pages on your own or do you use an agency? How important is such close communication with consumer for development of your brand?

We don’t have an official administrator person, it is mostly us personally who communicate via these channels. We definitely follow and believe in current and future role of the internet as our brands communication channel.  It has definitely positively impacted our brand.

As many other Croatian designers you have started to collaborate with Croatian fashion bloggers. What is your opinion on Croatian fashion blogger scene? Do you find Croatian fashion bloggers media wise to much publicized based on their fashion knowledge and blog readership?

We have to admit that we are not that familiar with the readership of Croatian fashion blogs, so we cannot comment this part and compare it with media coverage they are getting.  For us fashion bloggers are still interesting subject, as we wrote about it in our last column.

Naturally, from marketing and advertising side, they should be treated as any other media, for us they are just another channel of communication toward a potential customer.

What is your overal opinion on the Croatian women styling and on the current situation in the Croatian fashion scene and existing polarization among local fashion events? Do we really need that many fashion weeks?

This is one of the topics we wrote about in our column. We don’t see it as being black or white. While there are designers willing to show their collections, interested guests and media who eager to watch these shows, while we all successfully do our jobs, why not? Competition is a good thing. Production wise, we believe that Fashion.hr event can be compared with some of the international fashion events.

Do you find Croatian designer prices in general to be a bit to high? Why is that so?

It depends, in comparison to an average salary in Croatia, yes, they are definitely to high. However, the costs of the local production are rather high (machies, fabrics,rent, utilities and staff), so with that taken into account, the final price is not that high anymore. However, both of these sides need to be observed from local market point of view and its reality.

Where do you produce your garments, what are the avrage quantities and do you insist on local production?

All of our production is mostly independant, local in limited, smaller series.

Did you ever noticed someone copying your designs? If so, what did you do about it? Do you believe that current local legislation protects your design as your intelectual property?

We are not one of the paranoid ones who would create a noise about every similarity we notice, and we don’t think we have patented things like draping or bondage dress. However, there were the cases, absolutely, some that flatter, while other which clearly went too far with copying.

There was only once that we have proactively reacted, when one young designer from Rijeka has in detailed copied one of our dresses and presented it in media as her own collection design.

Local legislation doesn't provide sufficient protection so the public humiliation is the highest penalty one can get in Croatia in such case.

What is your stand on collaborations of high-end fashion designers with mass market retail clothing chains like Versace & H&M, Alduk & Amadeus. Do you think this cheapens designers main line? Why would someone buy more expensive piece from Versace's runway collection when one can get the similar piece 4x cheaper in H&M?

Such collaboration certainly makes fashion more available to general public. We fully support it.

Your collections can be purchased on 4 locations in Croatia and one internationally in Wiena. How hard it is for Croatian designer to expend to international market?

The main goal of each Croatian fashion brand should be the placement of their product to the local market first. If local market in Croatia could ensure well functioning business environment and placement to international markets, it would be much easier for us. This way it is rather hard. With Croatia entering the EU next year, there will be no import fees which will help us to be cheaper and thus more competitive on EU markets.

What are your future brand development plans?

We are working on showing new collection on the next Fashion.hr event as well as on launching T-shirts with fashion illustrations.

Given the current negative local and global economic trends, our plan is to maintain current business activity. While as a response to the economic crises, in the near future we plan to respond with launching the lower price tier collection.