Croata art director interview

Did you know that the home country of a tie is Croatia? Indeed, tie used to be a part of Croatian national atire back in the days. Traditional Croatian company known to deliver superiror quality ties, scarves and leather goods - Croata is now modernizing and following trends but staying true to brands origins, Croatian national patterns and motives as well as luxurious materials and hand made stiching they are known and recognized by.

Recently, I had a pleasure to interview the art director of Croata, Mrs. Mihaela Grnović Novaković who told me more about brands creative direction and modern approach brand is taking now in production and promotion.

In one of my upcoming posts you will be able to see multiple ways I wear their star product - maxi luxurious silk scarf as well as some other cool stuff from their collections. 

What is your opinion on how fashion industry in Croatia is developing?

Textile industry in Croatia and in the world in general is not flourishing now as it was in „golden“ 80's and beginning of 90's, but growing number and quality of fashion events and visible enthusiasm of young talented people, designers who work now in fashion here in Croatia today are definitely promising a better future for this industry. I actually see social media and bloggers largely positively contributing to this proces.

Did you ever contemplate cooperation with any of the young and perspective Croatian fashion designers?

Croata as you know has our designers; no we are definitely open for future cooperation with some of the Croatian designers.

Croata is known and recognized for its overall quality and handmade product. The quality of our product is based exactly on usage of these expensive, luxurious silk fibers in production and finalizing the product with handmade detailing. The process of making a handmade tie is very complex and it requires luxurious fabrics, a lot of experience, brand knowledge and love.

I think there used to be such perception before, more so because of the fact we are using the motives from Croatian national heritage as patterns on our ties and mostly in our special occasion, more traditional collections reserved mostly for weddings.We also offer accesories of fine leather and trendy design.

Do you sell outside of Croatia as well? How many stores is there in total?

Yes, Croata is sold internationally as well as on the internet, people are indeed interested and want to buy recognizable Croatian brand known by its famous motives, historic brand heritage and quality.

 It total there are ten Croata stores and one Outlet.

How much do you really follow fashion trends in accessories industry? Where do you get raw materials for your collections and where do you manufacture?

Of course, we follow world fashion trends; we visit industry fairs and other fashion events worldwide, for example in Milan and Paris. We want to be trendy but not in very fore coming and obvious way like season's hot color or motive as this is not giving brand a deeper. full story to tell.

We invest a lot of effort in collection development, from choosing the patterns, production technique, technological potential and developments of new patterns, final touches and handmade details with different fibers then base of the fabric etc.

Most of the pieces in Croata collection are made out of very luxurious and fine silk fibers. We get raw material from our international wholesale partners but we do all of the production here in Croatia.

Do you think that Croata although traditional and well recognized Croatian luxurious fashion brand is now considered old fashion by general public?

But I do not think that Croata brand is old-fashion. In contrary, in our new collections you can still find Croata's recognizable patterns but we have also incorporated trendy colors and Croatian national heritage elements.

The proof of this is that we are having more and more younger customers who know what they want and value the quality our products offer so they go for thin ties with trendy patterns and colors, trendy and luxurious silk scarves, bow ties in different colors and patterns from casual tartan to very formal ones.

This season our hero product is large silk scarf made in couple of different designs, shiny and rich in texture and sophisticated look which can be worn in number of different ways.