A woman is a style
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As children, we all create our own world filled with our dreams, fantasies and seemingly impossible plans for the rest of our lives. However, as we get older, we become more pragmatic, rely more on the opinions of others about what is best for us, thereby suppressing our inner child who wants more. Contrary to this natural phenomenon, there are people who have carried childhood dreams through their entire lives, who decided to take a chance and realize them.
The heroines of our article are the Kojachi sisters, Zita and Zarina, who jointly opened their own clothing business. They chose this field of activity for a reason, because since childhood they have been great adherents of the fashion world. Thinking about how to find a practical application for their hobby, they decided to create clothes that can make every girl feel beautiful, special and happy.
We had a chance to talk with Zita Kozachi, who shared with the newspaper Slovo the intricacies of doing business, her thoughts on the place of a woman in the modern world and how the dream of two sisters came true.
"The woman who changes the world"
"The idea of the origin of our clothing business comes straight from our childhood, Zarina and I have always been lovers of outfits, style, fashion. Even as little girls, we did not miss a single show from famous fashion houses. I cannot say that there were admirers of a certain brand or designer, they are all artists, creators who made a significant contribution to our formation, which led to the opening of our own business related to this industry. This is a whole era for us, we grew up on it, we studied. Watching how people with the help of things are able to make a girl even more beautiful and confident, and we caught fire with this idea. We often discussed trends and new fashion trends, and one day we realized that it was time to translate our thoughts and aspirations into actions. We have been manufacturing clothes for seven years now," says Zita.
When you first get to the shop of the Kojachi sisters, you begin to understand that they have their own characteristic vision of the woman of today. Here you will not see anything flashy and extravagant, you will not notice the radiance of rhinestones and feathers. Only laconic dresses with a strict cut and colors that are easily applicable in everyday life, only outfits that can give the customer a sense of confidence in their beauty. After all, it is believed for a reason that only another woman can understand a woman best.
"We are engaged in the production of exclusively women's clothing, in principle, it is very interesting and important for us to place a girl in the modern world, we often talk about this topic, therefore, we perceive an outfit for the beautiful half of humanity as a way of self-expression. Therefore, we offer our customers our own interpretation on this topic. We even have a slogan: "A Z-Kod woman is a woman who changes the world." Our target audience is a strong, charismatic woman who knows how to love herself and her surroundings. In turn, we want to be her tool for self-expression," Zita continues.
Brand DNA
By creating their own business, it is important for an entrepreneur to bring something new into this competitive environment, different from what the consumer has already become bored with. Therefore, when engaged in the production of clothing, it is necessary to show your creativity, create your own characteristic feature, the so-called DNA of the brand. As Zita Kojachi shared, for them this feature is shoulder products such as suits, coats and more.
"Our clothes have clear lines and exclusively natural fabrics. We like to combine contradictions, relatively speaking, restraint, but at the same time sexuality, it is important for us to create a golden mean that does not cross vulgarity. For example, a suit with a jacket would seem to be a man's wardrobe item, but even through these strict lines and textures we try to express the femininity and elegance of customers," says Zita.
As mentioned earlier, the founding sisters of the brand attach great importance to fabrics, from which interesting and beautiful wardrobe items are subsequently created. So when preparing for an interview, the first thing you pay attention to on the brand's website is the term "premium fabric", which in turn puts a person unfamiliar with the inner kitchen of clothing production into a stupor. As Zita herself admits, this term has already lost its significance.
"When we first started seven years ago, there was no understanding at all about Russian designers, and the associative range was not the best. Therefore, in the early years we had to go through the notorious "fire, ice and copper pipes". But when in recent years there has been a trend towards a Russian manufacturer and the term "Russian designer" has ceased to be perceived with something bad and low-quality, all manufacturers began to use terms such as: premium, luxury, Italian, which led to the devaluation of these expressions. After all, even any underground production can write on the sign that they sew exclusively from premium materials. Now I will explain how our fabrics get into our hands: all the famous fashion houses after the shows send for sale the materials that they have left after creating a certain collection of clothes, and these drains fly to different countries, including Russia. These are high-quality and famous fabrics. There is a limited amount of this material, so if a large manufacturer of factory clothes writes to himself that he works with premium fabrics, this is a lie. In our workshop, the circulation of manufactured products is always limited, so we can afford to work with licensed fabrics," says Kojachi.
In turn, the use of licensed fabrics also affects the final cost of the manufactured product. As Zita herself admits, just starting their business, they had a certain romanticization about production, they wanted to dress everyone beautifully and at the same time inexpensively, but it turned out to be impossible. After all, this requires factory production and the use of low-quality materials, which contradicted the idea of the brand.
Working moments
When communicating with people associated with creativity, the first thing you want to learn from them is the subtleties of working on a particular product, how the author came to this idea and what inspired him. As it turned out from our conversation with Zita, the process of creating clothes is multi—step, complex and demanding, and impossible without a creative vision.
"Being seen in the fashion world is necessary, and those who say that after sitting in the forest, they had an epiphany that brought with it an amazing idea are definitely lying. In our work, we take into account all trends and adapt them to the local mentality. My sister and I are constantly exchanging ideas, certain images that may suit women in Ossetia. It is Zarina who creates models, she draws always and everywhere, even if there is no paper, she makes sketches on any improvised materials, sometimes even on napkins. Creating clothes is a multi-step process that requires increased attention and love for this business, because even what you've been working on for a month may not meet your expectations. The first thing that comes up is the final picture of how it will look, and what the woman who wears this outfit will feel at this moment. To begin with, it is important to understand where a woman is at the moment, how she feels, and only then we think about how to relate all this vision to colors, structures and fabrics. Later, a sketch is created, fabrics are selected that can create the style that we need. The fabric selection manager determines which materials are best suited for a particular product. Then a clothing designer gets involved in the work, which, one might say, brings the designer and the fabric manager down to earth, saying that their sketch is simply impossible to bring to life. Already with her, we come to a compromise and even then the sewing of the experimental sample begins," Zita shares the subtleties.
As one of the creators of the brand said, after sewing an experimental sample, they wear each new piece of clothing themselves in order to understand how these clothes will behave in operation, how they will sit and how to wash them.
"We are responsible for what we produce," says Zita confidently.
Competition
As mentioned earlier, when creating your own business, one of the key factors that cannot be ignored is undoubtedly competition. After all, in such a crowded sector as clothing manufacturing, where much depends on brand awareness and the value of the product, it is very important to find your niche. However, according to Kodzati, the appearance of new clothing manufacturers and designers in Ossetia does not scare them, and they are even ready to help newcomers with advice.
"We opened quite a long time ago, and were one of the first in this segment, so I would call us grandfathers in the local cuisine, since we were at the origins of local clothing production. I am only glad that we inspire someone to open their own business related to the production of clothing. I also provide support to young brands just starting out on this path. In fact, this is a beautiful kind of activity, but very difficult and insidious. Therefore, when they tell me that they want to open their own brand, I sincerely worry about them, remembering everything that we had to experience at the very beginning. This is a complex type of business, so for my part I always support our manufacturers without thinking about competition," Zita continues.
In addition to the ready-to-wear line, the sisters sew clothes to order. If a person has already come up with a certain image, but at the same time could not find these clothes in stores, talented people in the workshop are able to make dreams come true, but this is not an easy matter.
"If we have a task and a sketch of the client or a selection of photos with images that he likes, work begins. Our task with Zarina is to coordinate the person, to direct him in the right direction, of course, it is impossible to repeat the dress from the Cannes Film Festival exactly. In this case, more dialogue is needed in order to avoid a situation in which the customer does not get what he wanted. If we sew clothes for the store, then we have samples, we can try several fabrics, but when making an order, we have no right to make mistakes. For example, now we have an order from Chicago for a wedding dress, so all the work takes place remotely, which only complicates the work. However, this is not an obstacle to make a woman happy on such a special day for her," says Zita.
It is always difficult to open a business together with close people and, in particular, with relatives, because it is fraught with frequent quarrels and omissions. So during the interview with Zita, the question of how they manage to separate the work from the personal did not come out of my head, and her answer turned out to be unexpected.
"I will be lying if I say that we do not quarrel, because we are all living people and there are undoubtedly disagreements in our work, but this is complicated by the fact that we are also sisters. Therefore, in the process of discussing some problem, one of us may recall a childhood grudge related to eaten sweets, etc. Besides, we are completely different, but we have learned to live with this dissimilarity, and we have the same goals for the future. And, no matter what, we will continue to make Ossetian women happy and stylish," concludes Zita Kodzati.