How did we found our own brand Mazumis?! By Miseliska
How was Mazumis born? I was texting Zuzka as every day, me in Slovakia and she in Greece. And suddenly she wrote: “ Why don’t we establish our own brand and bring all these beautiful greek pieces to Slovakia, we don’t have there anything like this.” In Slovakia we have stores that seem to be driven by: “ the worse the better!” It was Zuzka’s idea to bring greek fasciaon to Slovakia. I was the one who then made it happen. Running errands and taking care of everything. Although I really wished that us two sisters would travel the world and make this dream come true together.
Doesn’t matter, my little nephews just wouldn’t let they’re mom away so she had to stay at home with them. Simply we sat down and we planned what, when and how to do it. We bought plane tickets and went to Thessaloniki to see Zuzka. To be honest I knew nothing, how and where should I begin. Never before I haven’t done anything like this, so I just went…
We established Mazumis with my very good friend at brother-in-law Maxim, who really helped me a lot. And so me: aunt Mishel (as my nephews call me) and uncle Maxim went to explore the world of boutiques in the city. I followed the scent of fashion (not souvlaki smell, which you could really smell everywhere).
Thanks to our notorious charm and spirit we got to the contacts in Athens, where you can find the best greek designers. You could say we had the “luck from God”.
What did our office look like? Well it were only three stairs ahed of the front door, because that was the only place where we could find signal, our pink notebook and a pen and of course the print of the stairs on our buts. He had all of our meetings in one day planned for the exact times so we could manage it all with a map. Though Athens aren’t a small town. Now I’m wondering how we even made it not knowing the circumstances with that little pink notebook, driving around the city in the little Fiat. Somehow we took care of everything perfectly. "jak cuker"- "like sugar baby"
We were in such fire from buying clothes that we even forgot to eat. Banker Zuzka -we invited ourselves- got us the well-earned drinks in Athens. We came into a beautiful restaurant, that had seating right next to the water and we were enjoying the calm, the whisper of water, wonderful sunset and incredible wine. But of all this day the greatest experience for me was to see the designer showrooms, their manufactories and to see the process of production and to listen to their stories. Where they get the materials from and how they have them imported from all around the world even Brazil for instance.
To meet them personally, shake their hands and do the business with them and see all the products in person was really an amazing experience.
Then it was the time to come up with a name for our online store. Everyone is asking us why Mazumis and what does it mean… It is an acronym created of the beginning letters of our names. There were 3 of us at the beginning so MA- for Maxim, ZU- for Zuzka and MIS- for Mishel. Everything has it’s meaning. Then our logo is made of symbols MM in which you can find all the letters of name Mazumis from each side. Around the MM symbols we have used the typical greek motif… simply it fits perfectly.
Creating the internet page took eternity. The design itself, the theme, colours, fonts this was discussed daily so we could choose the right ones for our page. Not speaking of adding all the product picture, writing the descriptions, categorise them to the collections, types of apparel, for women and men. I’ve spent hours in front of the notebook in my office often i spent nights there and we had a training that lasted 6 hour. Then it was only up to us.Every single product had to be translated from English to Slovak. No robot just me in the evenings. Plus the boring things like: communication with the accountant, getting the papers ready, invoices, orders, order lists etc. Taking care of the boxes we use as packaging, print of the certificates, stickers, banners and the packaging itself was pure madness. Oh man when I was infolding the boxes… each took me around 10 minutes.
Our products are packed in silk paper with our sticker on it, then I put perfume in the box. I add our certificate that is printed on pearl-shell paper and you can find there a lovely message from us. Later I wrap the box in bubbly foil. When all this is arranged I fill in the contact information and send it via post or delivery company. Great right?! And yet I haven’t told you that Mazumis is just my hobby besides it I have a 9 to 5 job in a developing company. After I finish there I get to Mazumis. Believe it or not its not as easy as it looks. That is why I Kindly ask our customers to show some empathy.
How did we begin with our handmade collections?? That’s what our next blog is going to be about. And yes I even do the boring sewing works. But we have it perfectly split with Zuzka. Yeah you got it right it’s just me and Zuzka. We figured out that what we won’t do ourselves that won’t be done. We worked like this for few months, selling greek designer pieces on our e-store Mazumis. And then suddenly the idea of our handmade clothes came, creating something different reflecting our style that we wear daily. How do we create? What inspires us? You’ll find out soon in next blog. Have a nice day! Miska from Mazumis.
