Transilvania Business 2018

Transilvania Business 2018

 

More famous abroad than in the country, Carmerad, the brand from Mures county dedicated to stylish little girls.

by Ligia Voro

Carmerad, a Romanian brand, from Mures county, which redefines style and clothing for little girls, participated for the second time in March this year in the OCFW in California. Behind this stands the self-taught clothing designer, Adina Bidian. I visited her in her own workshop, where I took part in a design lesson and I saw where the joyful, colorful creations, which are friendly to girls aged 5-11 are born.

I met Adina Bidian in one of the places she feels best, her own workshop, where the dresses are created, born from an enormous love for her children. Maybe this is why her creations, beyond their special form, oriented to girls’ needs, express a lot of tenderness.

“My dear daughter, Evelyn, being my inspiration, helped me succeed in creating quality products, she developed my attention to detail, imagination and the wish to introduce the little ones to the world of beauty and good taste.” tells us Adina.

The colorful materials, sewing machines, for embroidery and strings, small and big colorful threads, special rulers for making patterns, special paper and so many other objects  a select designer needs are sitting nicely in the stylish workshop. An important, but necessary investment, for the dresses to show elegance, uniqueness, femininity and good taste.

The little clients can see the unique, limited edition products that Adina sent to California- the Petals Collection in 2017 and Wings in 2018. They are custom-made dresses, created with care, from natural materials, colors inspired from nature, for girls aged 6-11, an age group that is discovering their femininity, they want to be stylish and their bodies are not undergoing the changes of adolescence yet.

 

Traditional style with modern touch

Adina and her mother wished to create dresses which can be worn both at the age of 6 and as well as 9. Creating the pattern was a challenge, because it takes time and you need very good tools, precision and imagination to be able to make them.

“The sewing courses, pattern making and techniques, as well as the cutting techniques are certified by the courses organized annually -2011-2018- by the designer Blanca Popp in Munchen, who owns a design school”, Adina tells us.

For her creations, the designer from Mures county uses natural materials, brought mainly from Germany, Spain and Austria, because she wanted her special materials. Cotton and linen, but not only, strong or pale colors, chosen by instinct from the samples she receives, are just some of the materials Adina uses for her dresses.

Testing the materials and the guaranty offered by the quality certificates- Germany, Spain and Austria- continuous information in clothing for children, all these were a long process of knowledge and in-depth acquaintance with the domain, because my wish was and is to present a unique product to a market which is extremely competitive and full of charm, but which needs new approaches”, explains the clothing designer.

For the dresses to fit well and not to be uncomfortable, she doesn’t use, for example, zippers and creates magic with the front cuts in the dresses, so that they suit the body shape. All the dresses have linings, also designed based on patterns, this way the dresses are more comfortable, the girls feel them as a second skin. The creations are customized by embroideries such as baskets, butterflies, which is a symbol of the brand, a way of individualization and expression of the designer, which you will definitely find in the future collections.

Depending on when they are worn, you will discover on the dresses hand-made lace, silk and many other select natural materials.

She chose a traditional style, with modern influences, which was the greatest challenge, but also the lengthiest road of research, information, creating a visual identity for the concept in mind- logo, paper-textile labels.

 

Conquering the world

A great step for the promotion of the brand Carmerad and the creations was the virtual world.

“We launched the brand into the online world in fall 2016 and more thoroughly in 2017, by launching a site- www.carmerad.eu, to which I added along the year the past events, stories on the blog, written by me, translated by a specialist with English language certificate, along with superb photos from the photo shooting sessions made by the photographer Sandor Bereczky in the locations and settings carefully chosen by me” Adina tells us, these being the first steps for the promotion. The name Carmerad is about family, because it includes the initials of the children, her husband, hers and other important members of the family.

One way of promoting her creations was through Instagram, this is where the organizers of OCFW discovered her and sent her in 2017 an invitation by mail. Initially she thought it was just a joke. Eventually she went to the show in the United States of America with 28 dresses.

“It was a parade, a presentation at Disneyland, we weren’t on the stage, which would have been interesting; the girls were very pleased with the dresses, they didn’t want to take them off” Adina remembers her experience in a country about which people say it should definitely be visited.

Taking part in the fashion week in California offered her the possibility to present her creations on the e-commerce platform of the organizers.

She had and has also other collaborations.

Last year l co-operated with the online magazines Fashon Kids, La Mode Child-Teen and lnspire, Digital or Not Fine Art Australia, working together at different events- also in a physical shop- are occasions which offered me the possibility to step into the stage of recognition of my actions and personal efforts.

The months of spring promise collaboration with a shop in Marbella, Spain, showcasing the products they carefully selected, as well as preparing some models-Bavarian Traditional Clothing- for Germany. I have received a lot of appreciation along the years, testing and passing the dresses from one hand to another, from one country to another, through the frequent anual trips, which offered me the trust and conviction that there is still room in this select market”, confesses the girls clothing designer.

She had the first presentation in the country, in Targu Mures, in April, an event welcomed with interest, admiration, joy and encouragements for the future.

 

Passionate about drawing

Although it seems that the adventure of creation started for Adina only now, which is manifested in designing clothes, she has been close to art since childhood, when her talent for drawing was discovered. In the years that followed, she enriched her talent for art and beauty, through travels and study.

„I was raised in an artistic environment, learning competences in drawing skills, through sketches and portraits, the measures of the human body, practised throughout the years as a free-lancer, but also in the courses that l attended, which have created deep rooths in my professional development. The places l have visited, the atmosphere of the museums, exhibitions and shows, as well as the luck of having relatives for many years in the different corners of the world, offered me the possibility to study, observe and enrich my creativity and imagination, to  shape my artistic view”, she confesses.

Despite playing with her artistic side, Adina felt at one point the need to learn the practical aspects of a business. Threfore she graduated the Faculty of Economic Studies in Cluj-Napoca and obtained a master's degree in Business Administration.

Our journey in the world full of creativity ends here, but l keep in mind Adina's words: " We have to rediscover our femininity and to be more elegant”.

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