Anew fashion hub? Eastern Europe
London— In 2014, Magda Butrym, a young Warsawbased stylist-turned-fashion designer, debuted a 35-piece collection of floral print dresses and blouses, finished with cutaway detailing and hints of leather and hand crochet.
“I had always wanted to launch a label that was distinctly and proudly Polish,” said the 32-yearold designer, who is largely selftaught. “I wanted to create clothes inspired by Polish craftsmanship, manufactured here in Poland, and to have my design studio here, too. But I also knewthat was not going to be easy.”
She had worked in a number of small design businesses in Warsawbefore starting the brand that bears her name. “There are no buyers here, there is no fashion week. No one is here to tell you howtodo things, or where you need to get your foot in the door. I was taking a big risk.”
Historically, Poland, and other Eastern European countries like Hungary and Romania, have never been considered high fashion destinations. Behind the scenes, however, close ties with the industry have existed for decades, with factories across the region quietly producing garments and accessories for Western European luxury houses from Louis Vuitton to Hugo Boss.
Over the last decade, some of that business has moved elsewhere as companies hunt for cheaper labor and lower production costs, leaving many skilled workers without jobs. Now, a newgeneration of homegrown luxury entrepreneurs is building businesses that take advantage of that craftsmanship.
In Hungary, the contemporary womenswear brand Aeron was founded in 2012 by Eszter Aron, its head designer, and three friends, with Vivien Laszloffy joining the business as chief executive in 2015. The label’s philosophy, Laszloffy said, is to be a brand “that people will recognize and knowis from Budapest, in the sameway people look at Acne and knowit’s from Sweden.”
“People say it is against the odds to build a brand from here, rather than move to Paris or Milan, but actually we see it as an advantage,” she said. “Everyone has a vision in their minds of what a French or Italian brand looks like. But no one can imagine a brand from Budapest yet. And so we can seize that space and make it our own.”
As a privately owned company, sales figures are not released. But the two women said sales doubled annually in each of the last three years, with the majority of growth coming from an unexpected region: Asia.
After struggling to gain traction in the West, the pair looked eastward, where the brand’s minimalist aesthetic and technofabrics gained appreciation. More than 60 percent of its sales now come from the region: In Japan, Áeron is stocked in the major department store Isetan and in the fashion chain Tomorrowland, as well as in a string of boutiques across South Korea, mainland China and HongKong.
Signing with Itochu, one of Japan’s largest trading companies, “catapulted us into a different league,” Laszloffy said. And the success abroad has boosted morale at home in four factories where the brand makes its leather, knitwear and readyto-wear styles.
“The workers have always worked for foreign companies; nowthey are part of a Hungarian success story,” she said. “Furthermore, being able to drive an hour or two and see collections as they are produced and who produces them, rather than being a plane ride away, is a huge advantage to us as a small business. Wewouldn’t have it any other way.”
Proximity to workshops and factories waswhat prompted Alexandru Adam, a Romanian footwear designer, to move to Bucharest after studying in London at Central St. Martins and the Royal College of Art and designing shoes for Vivienne Westwood. After introducing his own accessories and quality casual label, called Metis, in 2016, Adam initially intended to divide his time between the two cities. But after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, he was prompted to think again.
“The environment in the U.K. is becoming increasingly unstable and makes it hard to plan for the future,” Adam said from his atelier in Bucharest, where he is hiring craftsmen and women who once worked in factories that produced leather goods for Western luxury brands. He intends to adopt a see-now, buynowapproach to sales, taking orders that can be made and shipped from Romania in two to three weeks.
Across the Black Sea from Romania lies Georgia, another former Soviet republic. The fashion and arts scene of Tbilisi, its capital city, has caught the fashion industry spotlight, in large part because of DemnaGvasalia, founder of the cult street-wear label Vetements and creative director of Balenciaga. Nowemerging designers still based in the region are reaping the benefits, too.
N-Duo-Concept, the brainchild of Nina Tsilosani and Natuka Karkashadze, a former fashion writer for publications like Elle Ukraine and Harper’s Bazaar Kazakhstan, started life in 2014 as an e-commerce website championing lesserknown brands. Ayear later, they unveiled a clothing line under the same name and with a similarly offbeat aesthetic, produced in Tbilisi and nowstocked in a number of foreign boutiques.