Isabel Tormos

Soledad and Isabel are two leather goods designers based in Barcelona, ​​who, although from different backgrounds and educations, share a great passion for handbag design. Soledad, fashion designer, attracted by crafts and pattern making. Isabel, an architect, observes the world through a grid. In love with detail and perfection, we both share the desire to bring about a change in the fashion industry towards a more ethical and sustainable model.

With our small business, Reliée Studio, we have just launched our personal website and we are selling our pieces to individuals. On the other hand, we are contacting and closing agreements with physical stores that will resell our products.

I came to create this business by vocation, since I have always liked the design of fashion and accessories. After a few years dedicated to architecture, I decided it was time to take a little twist towards accessory design. After undergoing training where I met my partner, we decided to create our brand.

What we do at Reliée Studio is to give a second chance to materials that are going to be discarded, inside the textile or the leather. We study how to optimize them and create unique bags.

Our business objectives are:

Our main goal is to achieve a cleaner planet, creating awareness about the waste that is generated in the fashion industry. With our work we show that the handmade product, made one by one, can take advantage of practically 100% of the cuttings or waste of the industry on a large scale. Only an artisan who creates pieces with time and with his hands can achieve something that the industry cannot, which is to produce cleanly, making the most of resources.

Our learnings from the Crafting Business Programme:

In these three months we have learned the importance of focusing on a very specific target audience, since only then will we be able to design better for them.

Another important point that we have learned is that having your own website and not depending on platforms like Etsy is better to be able to know closely data about your clients, to be able to understand what type of advertising to launch, knowing what they are looking for.

On the other hand, we have taken a step back to see our business in perspective at the idea level and also financially. We have delved into our business idea to know how to communicate it better. We have learned to calculate how much we must produce in a year for our business to be profitable.

My 5 top tips that I have learnt on this journey:

1. Each business is different, and each one must apply the techniques that work best for the main objective, which is to sell the product.
2. Selling online is a very important point of our business and we must dedicate a large part of our effort to it.
3. Consulting directly with professionals in each part of our business has been essential to clarify specific issues.
4. Collaboration with colleagues is essential to exchange knowledge and experiences because there is always someone who has gone through the other parts of the road before you.
5. We must dedicate time and training to each part of our business, trying to the maximum to know a little about each part, although in the end there are certain things that are outsourced (ex: paperwork).