Laura Fontán, Galician, -but with the heart also of Madrid and Vietnam-, is married, is the mother of three children, and together with her husband are the founders of Chula: a company that not only designs and manufactures clothes, but generates and promotes a fashion culture with a very special soul and beauty.
Laura, you just opened a store in Madrid, in the emblematic Malasaña neighborhood. We love your aesthetics and your project, but, above all, we love the beauty we see in your life. Beauty that has so many of the notes that we also want to reflect and share at ALAWA. How does a Galician in Vietnam end up setting up a business like Chula?
L: Well, the truth is that life coincidences, sometimes not so thoughtful decisions arise that lead to these projects. We went to Vietnam 14 years ago with the idea of going a year, Diego -my husband- and I, to visit my brother. At that time we were young, we had no children, we didn't have many responsibilities at work, and we have always liked living abroad. So we went to my brother's wedding in Vietnam and fell in love with the country. We had already lived in Brazil and we still wanted to have another experience abroad. My brother was more than generous and welcomed us into his home. He had a very nice and very big house, but the truth is that they were saints, because they were newlyweds and the two couples went to live together. It is something I will thank you for a lifetime. We stayed a year living with them. My sister-in-law became pregnant the month after we and I arrived the following month, so we spent our first daughter's pregnancy together.
When Carmen was born, we decided to move to another house, and in a short time my brother and his wife went to another destination. But, for us, I think Vietnam was a crush. We loved the country, the people, the food, the energy, the fabrics, the tradition of making. I went with the idea of creating something creative, of doing something a little commercial. She had studied Political Science, but specialized in International Relations. And Diego, who is the great artist of Chula, studied Architecture.
Diego is a "man of the Renaissance", a beautiful person. A very special man, with many interests. He loved Architecture, but he did not finish filling it, because he liked the creative part very much. And I started with a cousin of mine, she from Spain, a little the idea of clothes. In Vietnam there is a long tradition of going to the market and making your clothes, and well we started like this, a little playing. We put 30.000 pesetas each, from that time -about two hundred euros or something-, and on our first trip I started buying things in Southeast Asia. She made a street market at my grandmother's house, sold everything and with that money she bought more things. Then I started making; it was a little trendy clothes.
To all this, my husband helped me, and told me that I had to create a logo and a name to have a brand. He had a more entrepreneurial, marketing vision. And he made us the logo and gave us a name, and kept giving us advice. So, in all this process I saw a technique of painting a suit, and as Diego paints great, I said to him: "hey, why don't you draw me a picture in these silk skirts?", And I remember that he made a drawing great. And that weekend on the computer he made 100 different skirts with great drawings, and that was Chula. They conveyed a sense of humor, mischief and intelligence. I said, "This is wonderful!"
You discovered a vocation that was in your husband's heart without him knowing it (laughs).
L: Yes, because also Diego has never been very "fashionista", in the sense that he cares a lot about clothes. He is creative. The ideas that he had, to make everything more professional, I loved, and that is how we decided to mount Chula.
We started a little thanks to friends. Our idea was to sell in Spain, and our friends from there began to tell us that they wanted to buy our clothes because they liked it very much, it was very cool. And we were very lucky to start selling in a bag store that was well known there, a store called "Ipanema". We met the owners at a party, they saw the clothes, they loved it, and we said "hey, well, let's put the clothes there." We always say that they are our godparents, because they gave us the opportunity to start selling in their store in Vietnam. And we started a little playing, we did not make a marketing plan, we invested above all time, we sold one suit and produced another one, and little by little in an intuitive and passionate way, very close together, we have been together since 19 and 21 years old- , and we had never considered working together.
In other words, Chula also goes hand in hand with a personal project such as marriage.
L: Yes, indeed, and personal growth, because we are a couple who have been together for many years, but the years of Vietnam and Chula have been a very important growth in the couple.
A question arises: the children. You have three children. How is all this life compatible with being a mother?
L: Well look, Carmen is twelve years old, she is the oldest, Pablo is 11, and Yago is eight. The three born in Vietnam.
The children's theme has been very nice, because we have formed a family, while we have created Chula. We sometimes say that Chula is like having one more child, the son with problems, because you already know what it is to start a company, that there are always problems and you have to cover everything up a lot. The first show in Chula I was pregnant with Carmen, the oldest. Children see Chula as something that is also part of their lives, and they have always seen us working hard and with disabled people, of a thousand nationalities. It has been very enriching. For a long time we have been living in a house that was a workshop and a store, so the children have been soaking up everything, sometimes too much, but now that they are growing up and seeing what Chula is, they are very proud of it. And I think it is very good for the children to see up close what the struggle to create a company is a bit: on the one hand, how beautiful is the fashion and the glamor that it can appear, but on the other hand it is continuous work and continuous effort. Today it is very important for children to see it.
At the beginning, an important step in Chula was setting up the first workshop, because then we hired dressmakers, but then we decided to set up our workshop and contribute by investing in the country and the people there. Then we find a very special place that today is where Chula is. It is a very nice house in the center, and the truth is that we decided to make a concept of factory, store and home, and at that time that the children were little babies and we could be with them and at the same time in the workshop and with the clients, it was easier. I have never had maternal leave, we never stop working because we did everything ourselves. Then that house became an open space, where people came. Initially it was a house - workshop - office. Then our Spanish friends began to insist that we have to put a store there, and that's when we set up the store as such.
We really liked creating the Chula concept, a space where when the client came, he could understand everything about clothing. Meet the designers, and their inspiration. And let the workers who make the clothes meet other people who liked the clothes they made. Many times, in fashion, you see everything very nice in the store, but you do not know what is behind it. We really like the Chula concept in which in the main store you see the whole fashion circle, how it is made, and who does it.
You have touched on a topic that interests me a lot, the workers, we know that it is a very special point of the project.
L: Yes, in Chula 80% of the workers are disabled people, initially it started a little by chance, because when we hired the first person in “Chula” we contacted a Vietnamese NGO that trained deaf-mute girls in sewing, and we went and We hired the first girl and we loved working with her. We at that time did not know how to speak Vietnamese very well, so communication was with the eyes, the drawings, the gestures, and it was really easier than with any other Vietnamese. So we hired the first girl and we loved having her with us at our house and working with her. Seeing how from the sketch it happened to the garment and being able to interact with it was very enriching. And since the experience with her was so good, we decided to hire a second, a third, a fourth. We asked her about deaf-mute friends and so we formed a team. Given the good experience of working with these girls, we have already decided to form a policy in the company to always hire people with some type of disability and give them the opportunity.
At the beginning they were all deaf and dumb women, because they were the sewing and embroidery women and we asked them to recommend us friends, so we had a group of different generations but they were all friends, for the majority it was their first job. Girls from 18 to 30 years old but that was their first job. Then we participated in a Red Cross fair and we met a girl who has been very important to us, a Vietnamese girl, very diminished but with an incredible head and a super inspiring woman. She was helping people with disabilities find work, and so we began to contact people who had also had problems with pennyroyal, blindness, lameness, some more severe than others. It is true that they are people who at first have more difficulty working, but then our experience is that they are very loyal, hard-working people who highly value the opportunity they are given. And in turn, I find all this something that is very beneficial for the company.
Chula continues to grow and there is an international leap, how has that expansion been to open this store in the heart of Madrid?
L: It is a slow road, for nine years we were at our headquarters, and we started doing cultural events, because we wanted to promote local artists, both art and culture, and music. Chula thus became a community space, where parties, events, exhibitions were organized. It has been a cultural meeting where the entire Vietnamese community of different nationalities has experienced it as their own. So, for a long time we have had a very personal and direct relationship with the worker and with the client. Then you realize that businesses are changing. I used to think that I loved the concept of a small store that you know all of your customers, but then you realize that we have a very special product, and a very nice company philosophy, due to the issue of social work and promoting disabled and local vietnamese culture. And then an idea and an illusion of making a global company, but emphasizing the local strength, the culture of the places and their crafts. And it is what has led us to expand internationally. Ride "Chula's" around the world. In addition, we are a very organic company: we do not have credits or investors, we invest everything in the company, and we go little by little.
In these years, we have set up four stores in Vietnam: we have two in Hanoi, one in Hội An - World Heritage Site -, and one in Ho Chi Minh, which is the commercial capital, and we have also opened a small one in Bangkok, because We have a large clientele there and it is close to Vietnam, we see it as a strategic place. And what has been a surprise has been to mount something in Madrid. We have launched this year, and the truth is that we are very excited, because it is like closing a circle and going home. We want to develop the brand in Spain. Because it is true that in Vietnam we are a very well known and much loved brand. We participated in the Vietnamese fashion week seven years ago, we are the only foreign designers, and we have represented Vietnam in catwalks in Washington, Rome, Madrid. Our first parade in Madrid was hand in hand with Vietnam, for the forty years of international relations between Spain and Vietnam. And we are very grateful to Vietnam. And now our illusion is to develop the name of our brand in Spain.
The repercussion that we have had in Spain is that we have been “Marca España”, when a few years ago the book of one hundred “Spaniards in the world” promoting the name of Spain in the world was made, and we have had the honor of being there .
That having studied International Relations was a bit of a harbinger of what your life was going to be like, bringing together so many cultures and so many countries.
Since you have touched on this topic, the fashion world is a world that has an appearance, dazzles a lot from the outside, and yet there is an essence, a heart behind everything. Values that can be solid and enriching for humanity. What do you think the fashion world has to offer from "true", from "eternal" to today's woman?
L: In Chula, what we really like is that we do not go so much for the "fashion" and "glamorous" side of fashion, we focus more on the values of offering a special product, with values, with history and love. It seems to me that our company has very beautiful values behind fashion. Fashion should go more that way. Our experience in Vietnam with respect to the fashion world has been to find true beauty and not so much of appearance. We consider ourselves exclusive, but in the sense that we have very limited pieces as it is a very particular product; and we consider ourselves special, because the clothes we sell say something, have a background. I always give the example that when you see someone dressed very "glamorous", you say "how beautiful, how elegant", but you take a step back. We with Chula, we want people to step forward, to invite you to interact. It is clothes that are telling you something, that is talking about your personality, about an ethnic minority that makes clothes in a certain way, about your favorite animal, from your favorite city. We have many themes in clothing. It is a very visual and cheerful clothing, we say they are conversation pieces. When you are at a party, a little self-conscious, and you see someone in a Chula outfit, it gives you the confidence to speak, to get closer, to meet.
What is Chula's aesthetic proposal?
L: Ours is "Art to be worn", because for us Chula is more art than fashion. We are expressing something artistic, and sharing happiness. We want you to be able to put on an "art suit" and a "happiness suit". And also, to wear something very well done for everything behind it, and apart from the fact that the clothes connect, that people enjoy wearing our clothes. Not only because she feels great, but she feels great for wearing something that connects her to others, and dressing with good values.
Thank you Laura, because you really have managed to connect with the heart of Alawa, where we seek to promote this beauty that endures and that does not stay in the fleeting, but rather leads us to the beauty that is in people's lives. The one in your life, in that of your family and in that of your business. We wish you a lot of success in this new stage in Madrid. We are here to always accompany you.
L: Thank you very much. When I got to know Alawa, I was very excited, because I see that it is an equal project, a vital project, a project for couples, and with great professionalism. And I really like this that Chula and Alawa share: the search for inner beauty.
Thank you very much, always!
Web site: chulafashion.com
Instagram: @chulafashionhouse
New store in Madrid: Calle 2 de Mayo 10. (Malasaña)