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Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Elena Starostina (ES) for A' Design Awards and Competition. You can access the full profile of Elena Starostina by clicking here. Access more information about the award winning design Lady Already here. |
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Interview with Elena Starostina at Friday 8th of May 2020 FS: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design? ES: Well, I always loved kids. Contemplating their grace and natural charm made me think of what I could do to highlight this. Then I got an idea of creating girls' clothing of an outstanding design: something that a small girl would dream of. Something special and exclusive that parents could dress their princesses in. Besides, the clothes are affordable for all types of customers, therefore, there can be expected a fast return of investments. FS: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve? ES: I wanted to stay away from ready-made images of children's clothing looking alike, from the mass-production. That could be described as elegant and very individual style knit fabric fashion for girls. Drawing yet another image of a beautifully dressed girl, I was thinking: what would moms and dads dare of? How would a parent dream of inspiring his or her small lady's imagination? FS: What are your future plans for this award winning design? ES: The concept is to design and manufacture limited editions of girls' stylish and comfortable premium class knit wear that could meet price requirements of families ranging from low to high income. . As an advantage there should be underlined the eco-friendly materials of which our products are manufactured. The plan is to expand our sales to European and American markets. FS: How long did it take you to design this particular concept? ES: The idea has been developed for over 2 years by now, and what´s important, it´s a long way to go in conditions of the changing market. FS: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration? ES: The concept was born naturally. Creating our first collection for girls from 3 to 10 years old, we though: what would our children want? They would surely like to look as fancy as Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Andersen beautiful fairy tales characters. They would dream of getting into the castle where Cinderella met her Prince Charming or get into the magic Disneyland. So, we just started with party dress design for girls. Then we looked at European fashion development and reconsidered the design and the business model. FS: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself? ES: At present we produce and sell our design ourselves, however, in the changing market everything is possible, and we are very open-minded. We could think of leasing the production rights in the future. FS: What made you design this particular type of work? ES: First and foremost is the business concept. Then there comes the design itself, attention to every small detail. And, above all, it’s thinking of people, their daily needs and possibilities. FS: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work? ES: Speaking about the products’ style, it’s worth mentioning European fashion. There are some French and British designers whose works help us see the new fashion concepts and trends. And we do not discard them. We are very open to see new designs and keen to try new elements of style, however, that should not contradict to our business model. FS: Who is the target customer for his design? ES: Those are 3-12 years old girls on whose interests and needs we are focusing, however we do not discard expanding our product line to the adults, which would lead to increase of the sales market in the future. The product assortment meets the latest trends of the world’s fashion, and at the same time it’s unique. So, we are talking about mostly women aged 20 years and on, who have children. FS: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts? ES: It’s the parameters of quality we should talk about. All the designs of our brand are eco-friendly. Highly ecological materials we work with guarantee the commercial success of this project and its high recognition. FS: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean? ES: The opinion of a small girl who has her own view of herself, her own image was the key idea motivating us to compose this name. Inside every small child there lives a certain hero he or she would like to resemble, or maybe she or he invented a fairy character herself. A girl is always dreaming of some beautiful fairy tale that would come true starting with her own image. She already feels like a princess. She already knows she is beautiful and successful. She is a LadyAlready, even though a small one. FS: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project? ES: We use the latest knitting machinery that permits us to treat delicately the ecological materials and manufacture very high-quality clothing, even if the product is targeted for a low-income customer. FS: What is the most unique aspect of your design? ES: There are three key advantages we can offer our customers: one is eco-friendly materials, another one is systematic renewal of our collections, so that to avoid any mass-production, and the other one is high quality and dedication with which we treat our customers. FS: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills? ES: Our professional team comprises designers, engineers and skilled equipment personnel, whose talents combined with smart technologies bring marvellous results. FS: What is the role of technology in this particular design? ES: High and smart technologies of manufacturing the products are of extreme importance, as they not only let us design premium-quality products, but also permit short production terms and low investments. To receive more information on our know-how you can ask for a detailed company presentation: lady@ladyalready.com. FS: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design? ES: Our specialists are quarterly conducting full research of our market segment. Thus we are able to see the market trends and latest movements. FS: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept? ES: The biggest challenge for every young company is to attract and retain the customers in conditions of unstable markets. Nevertheless, as we are working for a long-term prospect, we are looking forward to a long and interesting farming. As a young company, we are also currently searching for investors which could make our cooperation mutually and highly beneficial. You can write to us to receive our business-plan: lady@ladyalready.com. FS: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition? ES: That was very simple: we got lots of recommendations from our customers. Being a young company we already won high appraisal from many our customers. And, what’s more important, they recommend us, thus increasing the brand recognition. Our customers are people worldwide, as one of our business tools is social networks. Therefore, participating in an international design competition was a beautiful part of our everyday business development. FS: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work? ES: That was very simple: we got lots of recommendations from our customers. Being a young company we already won high appraisal from many our customers. And, what’s more important, they recommend us, thus increasing the brand recognition. Our customers are people worldwide, as one of our business tools is social networks. Therefore, participating in an international design competition was a beautiful part of our everyday business development. FS: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions? ES: A special feature we can offer our customers is an individual design constructor, which permits our customers choose elements of design they would like to have placing their orders. We are also happy to invite potential investors. To receive more information, please contact us: lady@ladyalready.com.
A' Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers. |
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Good design deserves great recognition. |
A' Design Award & Competition. |