Designer quickie: Aba Drvar-Tomičić.

Following last Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb I had a chance to interview Aba Drvar-Tomičić. Young designer who's super cute faux leather jackets for SS 2013. season totally won me over! Especially styled with maxi cotton dresses which I often wear! Another reason to do this interview was a boutique opening at Nova Ves 84 street in Zagreb which Sonja Lamut  whom I interviewed earlier this year and Aba have opened together. 

How hard it is to be creative in today’s volatile economic environment? Where do you make most compromises? Where do you manage to save and what is the most expensive part of making a collection?

It does get hard sometimes.  In order to create a good quality piece one usually needs to spend a good amount of money. When it comes to building a brand it gets especially hard to make any progress without significant financial investment. Lately it seems like all of us young designers are becoming experts in creating something out of nothing.

I actually make compromises in every step of the collection making process. 

Each time I start quite ambitiously in hopes that I will be able to manage pull out full collection and execute my essential idea to its fullest but then slowly but surely reality kicks in and I start to compromise on each thing a bit without hurting the quality of fabrication and making as much as possible in order to finalize my collection. Usually the most expensive things are little details which break the set budget at the end.

Jacket - 1000kn | Dress - 800kn

Jacket - 1000kn | Dress - 800kn

When you look back now what is that one thing you wish someone have told you when you were a student about being a fashion designer?

I started to study fashion design at the time when textile industry in Croatia was still going strong and fashion design still underrated. When I completed my studies, textile production in Croatia started weakening and design started strengthening a bit, now I feel like it it overrated in some cases, especially in comparison to the textile production and quality of making.  

I would like there to be some gold-middle where one can learn about design through practice and how demanding this job really is. It would be great if there were experienced designers in Croatia who could mentor me through the whole process of planning, creating and presentation.

In what way do you see fashion designers and social media are changing fashion industry?

Social media and fashion bloggers are making fashion much more dynamic, personal and approachable, everything has became much faster. Trends are changing faster than ever which puts personal style in focus and fashion is getting a whole new meaning and dynamic.

How would you comments textile industry and fashion design in Croatia today? Do you think it is possible to live solely of fashion design?

I think that fashion design in Croatia has matured a lot in last several years with it, domestic fashion houses realized importance of hiring good fashion designers as a key to good sales and production of their production.

Unfortunately, due to current financial situation I think there will still be some time before Croatian textile industry recovers fully.  In order for this to happen a strong push is needed which will bring together expert from various fields: business people, designers, pattern makers, technological support and PR experts which currently doesn’t seem to be feasible?

Currently, small manufacturing sites are surviving and managing well designer part of work but also business and PR.

I still can’t live solely of my job, I just started and investment needed is massive.

How did the fact that you became a mum changed your creative process and influenced your work?

Actually, I decided to complete my fashion education after I gave birth to my third child, so my kids are actually from the start of my education.

I truly believe that the fact I have kids has motivated me to continue and finalize my education, and to fight to do we hat I love and become a complete person.  As with most of the families with little kids, we never have enough time in one day to do all we want to do.

What is your average customer like?

I really have various types of clients, just like I work within a range of styles.

Roughly I would say that my clients are in their early thirties and many seem to be quite artistic.

The price range of my pieces is quite reasonable I think, from 250 kn for shirts which I paint manually up to 1500 kn for the faux fur, double side coat from my last collection.

Recently you have opened a boutique in Zagreb with your colleague designer Sonja Lamut, what are you plans for the future?   

Sonja and I have studied together at Profokus school of design and we have been friends ever since. We have completely different creative goals but we appreciate and respect each other’s work and are always here for each other. This is how we decided to open a boutique together at Nova Ves 84 street in Zagreb which we are currently redecorating and looking forward to its opening. 

My new Prada.

So.....the story goes like this last Sunday I walked in my boyfriends apartment in Barcelona, he was away as he had a game in another city. As usual I dropped my suitcase, and walked around the apartment to estimate the 'damage' and surprisingly the apartment was much cleaner then usual, he even washed and hanged the laundry. 

I changed my clothes and started with the vacuuming and moping the floors and once I got to the living room..there it was - big, white bag with navy blue printed Prada logo. I turned off the vacuum cleaner and peaked in, I didn't touch it. Wasn't sure it was for me. Then I texted my boyfriend..no response, it was about 4 hours before the game, he was taking a nap in the hotel. Hmm...I was curious, I thought maybe some of his friends from Croatia ordered it as a gift for their wives. I was still curious...I always wanted Prada tote. Not just any Prada tote but Prada Vitello Daino tote.

Prada Vitello Daino tote is not just another designer bag, it is tote of a great value and quality from a brand with long and famous history. Prada was founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada and was originally known as Prada Brothers. In 1978, Mario's granddaughter Miuccia Prada led the company's expansion into distinctive clothing that quickly became a favorite among celebrities worldwide. Currently, Prada is one of the most influential clothing lines in the fashion industry, with an iconic collection that includes sunglasses, handbags, and shoes in addition to men's and women's clothing. 

This bag is often copied and duplicated so company issues a unique certificate with it in order to protect and identify it's customers. There is very high demand for it so for example Saks Fifth Avenue doesn't allow one to order more then three pieces in 30 days period. 

Finally...I carefully opened the hard white Prada shopping bag and untied the satin white Prada bows holding the bag handles. Inside there was a white soft cotton bag with prada logo and 2 envelopes, one big one with my name on it and a small one with hard certificate card proving bag's authenticity...and then...there it was...in it's full glory - brand new soft black calf leather, double handle,detachable shoulder strap, gold plated hardware, snap closure,one inside pocket and logo fabric lining - Prada Vitello Daino tote and it had a card with my name on it!Ouu happy day! I still can't believe it's mine! :)

"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today,

when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language."

Miuccia Prada

Tigress Reign by Ada Zanditon

One of the most anticipated shows for me on this SS 2013.season's Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb was Ada's show. I interviewed Ada before she came over to Zagreb to do the show, she told me about her passion for creating sustainable fashion pieces, about challenges of working in today's volatile economic environment and of course she showed me a sneak peak of her SS 2013. fashion film.

Backstage at DFWZ was as hectic as everywhere else, Ada still managed to have fun with her team of dressers and to sneak on some popular Croatian candy - Kiki.

I cannot say I was surprised by the energy, girl power and fierceness of Ada's SS 2013. collection after following her work for couple of years now there words are exactly describing Ada as a person. I loved everything from mood film, styling, amazing Julian Hakes shoes, luxurious floaty silk used for dresses as well as patches of leather which accentuated shoulders of dresses transforming a romantic floaty silk piece into a protective armor for tigresses in all of us.

One of my very favorite dresses from this collection on top of the green jungle dress with leather patch sleeves and open back is the bellow gray digital print silk dress ideal both for work and play which I plan to order upon my return from Barcelona to Budapest.

Jungle dress - 100% silk, made in London, £770

" It was fantastic to be back in Zagreb for the third time to be part of Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb.  Many thanks to Suzy & Sarah for inviting us back! Yet again, the experience of being part of this event was fantastic and Alexis Knox, my stylist and I had great assistants backstage, fantastic models and a great production crew to work with. The audience response to the show was brilliant - we were really thrilled and following the show we had celebrities and new customers wanting to buy dresses from the collection."  

Ada Zanditon

Jersey print dress, 100% silk, made in London, £405

Bellow you can see the full fashion film - Tigress Reign, the location of filming was Cyprus with the help of Ada Zanditon's partners: Easy Jet Holidays, Ecover, Illamasqua and Keune.

Director : Thomas Knights | Music: Sebastian Bartz  Styling: Styling: Alexis Knox | 

Makeup: Mika Johnson of Illamasqua | Hair: Christian Landon 

Soft step for social butterfy on the go.

Yulia Kharlapanova in “Risky Business” 

by Benjamin Kanarek for Harper’s BAZAAR En Español –November 2011.

The other day, rather late in the evening when I finished responding to all of the work emails, done my house choirs, walked Papi and did my daily pampering routine after quit an exhausting Monday I got a lovely email from Butterfly Twist team which definitely brought a smile to my face in an instant. They wanted to introduce their brand to me and as soon as I saw their product I looked over the screen of my laptop at my toes, wiggled a bit and thought to my self "What a neat idea! I need these in my life!"

Then, I thought about you ladies, my readers, fabulous working women from all over the world running around in heels all day, maybe just like me, from meeting to meeting, from taxi to plane, at home and at the office - we working ladies, we never stop. So...why not give some fabulous rest to our busy feet?

I talked to the Butterfly Twist team to find out what is so special about these fabulous ballerinas!

Cream quilted Oliva - my favorite pair! So Chanelish!

How did you come up with the idea to launch Butterfly Twists? 

It was actually a funny way they came about! 4 guys started it in London! College friends Emmanuel, Frank, Mark and Philippe, came up with a unique fashion-forward idea after one of them (who shall remain nameless!) literally knew what it felt like to be in a woman’s shoes after losing a bet and attending a party wearing a pair of 6 inch stilettos! A long bight of discomfort, for the unfortunate one wearing heels, prompted them to come up with an idea to end high-heel suffering for women.

Butterfly Twists since won UKFT award (United Kingdom Fashion Textile) and are sold in over 30 countries and continue to grow internationally in all kind of stores from Asos to Topshop and Selfridges&Co.

Who is your target customer? 

Our ideal customer is the girl that loves to wear heels but also loves the idea of fashionable comfort and needs it because she is always on the go. The Butterfly Twists girl is a social butterfly that loves fashion, travel, nightlife, and being adventurous not to mention head-to-toe in style wherever she goes, that's why she needs her Butterfly Twists. They take her everywhere she needs to be. 

We provide a chic comfort to some famous feet as well like: Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, Hale Berry, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Cameron Diaz etc.

Cleo Leopard

White Sneakeskin

How did you manage to produce such a useful, good quality product for such an affordable price? 

It was definitely no easy task. A lot of time and research went into finding the right resources that would bring quality, style and comfort into a foldable ballerina at the right price. It's easy to source the most expensive materials and offer a high priced shoe; it is much more difficult to make an affordable shoe with all the high quality attributes that a high-priced shoe has, but that is what makes Butterfly Twists stand out. We are here to provide a product that is exceptional in every way. From price to fit to comfort. 

What are your plans for the future in terms of brand expansion and development? 

We have a few new products that we are launching and are very excited about! Coming soon for SS13 are foldable flip flops! We will continue to expand by bringing women's favourite, go-to products with a twist.

Did you had a chance to check out Butterfly Twists website? Which model is your favorite? 

Mine is definitely Cream quilted Oliva but I got my eye on couple other ones as well! 

Follow my blog's Facebook page and Butterfy Twists Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest pages for upcoming surprises ;)

Designer quickie: Ada Zanditon.

As Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb is coming closer (22-24.11.), I got the chance to interview British designer - Ada Zanditon. This is the second time Ada is showing at DFWZ, last time she did an interview for Croatian press she said that she absolutely loves Zagreb and would love to come back, so she is coming again this year.

I first met Ada at DFWZ after party, we were coming out of the cars at the same time in front of one club and she said "Girl, you look fierce in that dress!" - I was wearing Lei Lou multifunctional fitted dress with long bat sleeves and later wrote a post called 'Ada the Fierce'.  Ada was all smiles that night after she showed her rather impressive collection called  Poseisus. 

My favorite thing about Ada is not only her amazing designer talent but also her passion for creating sustainable fashion pieces in this time of crises when most designers are focused on how to increase the income and not much thinking about how damaging their product creation might be for environment or where are they sourcing their materials. Also - Ada worked for the house of McQueen - my absolute favorite brand in the world. :)

What was your inspiration for SS 2013 season which you will show this week in Zagreb?

My inspiration for spring  summer 2013 is tigers, Particularly the way that the female tiger is both majestic elegant and beautiful and I made a narrative based around the tigress As if she was a woman in a Quentin Tarantino film. Here is the short preview. 

How much effort does your brand put into sourcing and producing eco-sustainable fashion pieces? Why is this important to you?

We make a great deal of effort to source our  fabrics sustainability and from transparent sources it is important to me to do this because I want to show that it is possible to create products which are desirable, innovative and interesting. I want to create a narrative that can be engaged with because it is a creative story or because it is analogy about our relationship to our environment, Whatever someone chooses to take from the collection as long as it's inspiring, then that's what's important. 

Either someone will choose my brands because it is sustainable and they like the product or they will choose it simply just because they like the product. 

Do you feel the impact of economic crises on your creative work? How much did the economic crises affect the sales of your collections if any?

It has been a very big challenge to grow a business during the recession however it has also given me resilience and strength that I have Milans how to grow a business on the download economic climate, make it flourish and continue to grow.

Alexander McQueen is my all time favorite fashion designer. How would you describe the experience of working for the house of McQueen?

I am very lucky to have had some good work experience before setting up my brand. All the work experience that I did helped me to understand how tough the fashion industry is and what level of dedication and perfectionism would be required in order to create a brand.

Do you think that in today’s day and age fashion designer needs to be equally a creative genius and a business person in order to build profitable brand?

In today's climate if you are a new designer and you are independent and you cannot afford to pay someone else to do the business side entirely for you, then absolutely you must be good at the business as well.

 I have to spend at least as much of my time answering emails and working on the business strategy as I do spend being able to design and make things.

Vukovar - Croatian word for freedom.

It was five a clock in the winter afternoon and it was already dark. We were not allowed to turn on the lights in our apartment. The city was under air attacks again, attacks were happening couple of times a day.

I was 5 years old, sitting behind the curtain with my nose touching the cold glass balcony doors yelling out to my mum the names of the neighbours in our building in whose apartments I could still see some light, I was scared that bomb will hit our building if they don't turn all of the lights off.

When we heard the siren, many times in the middle of the night, we would take our blankets, some water, my doll and rushed down the stairs together with the rest of the people from our building to the concrete shelter positioned in the middle of the building's yard, under the ground. The shelter was stalked with iron bunk beds without mattresses. Our mums would just fold the blankets and lift up several of us kids to one bed and tried to keep us calm and quite. There were mostly women, kids and old people there.

 We didn't hear from my dad for a long time now, he was somewhere close to grandparents house wearing military uniform and hunting rifles (as they didn't have any real weapons yet) together with his brother trying to break through the thick woods on foot, get my grandparents out of the harms way and try to defend the house they were born in from Serbs who marched into Croatia trying to win over, rob and burn as much as they could while killing the people who tried to stop them.

They managed to get the grandparents out but the house was burned to the ground. Next few years we didn't see much of my dad, he was coming and going every few months with some other soldiers to pick up military candles, boots and equipment which my uncle bought and shipped from Chicago.

Our apartment was always full of people and shipping boxes, my uncles family lived with us for some time - aunt, niece and nephew who were refuges from their city as it was to dangerous to live in at the time. My mum traveled daily and worked close to Zagreb at the town which was heavily attacked and bombarded every day, she was pregnant at the time, after work she would go to get some food, powder milk and military cookies in order to make somewhat decent meal for all of us at home.

Sometimes there was not much food, but my mum being as creative as she is was able to make sweets for us only from egg yolk and some sugar, she tried hard to make our life as normal as possible. My sister and I were still to little to understand much but we asked lots of questions, one question I remember never getting the answer to neither from my parents nor from dad's military friends was : 'Why are they throwing bombs at us, why do they want to kill us?'

Now, I am not a nationalist, I don't hate anyone, I didn't see the worst of it during the war like kids in Vukovar or Bosnia did. I am blessed because I didn't loose anyone from my immediate family and I was way to little to understand what was going on.

 The fact is, there are certainly no kids from Serbia who can tell you the story of Croatian army throwing bombs in their back yard or taking their dad to concentration camp - because Croatian land was invaded and Croatian people were attacked and that is the simple fact which has now been officially recognised and proved by international court of justice with recent liberation of our military generals who lead our countries defense to victory. Now, our nation and it's war victims got their dignity back and with this their sacrifices were not made in vain.

Today, 22 years later, we are remembering Vukovar and it's victims, the city and the people who's homes and bodies were front line of Croatian defense,Vukovar was our shield which protected the country from falling under aggressors hands and Vukovar and thousands of people who lost their lives for us to be able to call this country our own, to speak our language and live our culture, which many people take as given or for granted. Vukovar should NEVER EVER be forgotten.

The world needs to know the truth about Vukovar and never let it happen again nowhere else, not in Gaza, not in Syria.

All grown up...and still a princess.

Photo source: D&G look from FW 2012. show

"Always wear your invisible crown!"

Not that my work wee wasn't super exhausting, but then I finally get everything done by ten o'clock Friday night and start typing up one of my blog post, being my usual ADD (attention deficit) self, two minutes later I end up reading an article on Mashable saying that only 9% of people actually get to work in a profession which they dreamed about when they were little. 

Ugh...thanks Mashable,'real inspiring', just what I needed on Friday night. 

A minute later, my hyper, at times slightly ghetto self said - "No,no, can't do!" I'll find a way to become a princess, meaning to wear a crown, daily, again (I did it as a child and then they made me take it off when I started going to school) without getting myself fired or ending up in mental institution. 

So I said to myself...tone it down just a bit Katarina, maybe I shouldn't go for full blown Miss America tiara cause then I have to do that elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist wave whenever I see someone I know and in the P&G office in Hungary that might look just a tad unnatural. 

Second best option for me was to consult Vogue. See, Vogue is like fashionistas google, it knows everything! So I did. My compromise solution is to start wearing this lovely, trendy and OH so chic head accessory just like they showed it on runway this season! 

Photo: Rodarte FW 2012.

Photo: D&G FW 2012.

Photo: Chanel preFall 2012.

Photo: Oscar de la Renta FW 2012.

Photo: Oscar de la Renta FW 2012.

Come on, admit it! What did you wanted to become when you were little lovelies? 

Did you give up on your dream already?

"You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling!"

Eames (Tom Hardy, Inception)