Hi guys, tell us about yourselves.
Margaux: I grew up in the fashion industry, my mom used to be a designer for children’s
clothes in France, so I've always been surrounded by fabrics, ribbons, drawing… I knew quite early what i wanted. So I studied
fashion design right after college.
Olivia:
I come from Paris where I’ve grown up in a creative environment since my father
is a photographer and my mother a journalist. I’ve studied different creative
fields and started to be really interested in the fashion industry when I worked as a stylist for different magazines in Paris. Then, I moved to Shanghai where I created, Warehouse Studio, a creative agency with my husband and few years
after, Bubble Mood.
What was your inspiration in starting your own label?
We started
to realise there we have so many clothes shops in China, but it’s hard to find
a brand with nice clothes and real strong image. You either
have the famous luxury brands, or the small shop with no real brand, but there
were not so many intermediate options as "createurs".
Moreover we
also realised the Chinese young girls are more and more into fashion, and they
are very open to new ideas about fashion, it means new shapes,
new inspirations, new codes, etc… We saw the opportunity
to create something that doesn’t really exist here at the moment: a brand which
is a mix of Asian and European inspirations, with nice and trendy pieces, but
still affordable. We thought it
would be a great challenge.
How did the name "Bubble Mood" come about?
Bubble evoked the idea of something effervescent, fresh and
always in movement, that’s our idea of fashion. Mood refers to the girls and
women moods that changed quite fast and that’s why we also wanted to create a
brand that can satisfy these different moods thanks to different clothes with
different syles while keeping a directive line.
How would you describe the "Bubble Mood"
customer?
The Bubble Mood girl is someone
who likes fashion but who doesn’t want to look like all the trendy girls. She
can express who she is thanks to our clothes while being chic and elegant. She
is urban and lives in big cities like Shanghai or HK and is quite exigent.
Why kimonos?
We liked the idea of taking an Asian classic piece, a shape
that exists for decades, and completely change the aspect and way to wear it.
Moreover the kimono is really a style that highlights the women silhouettes by revealing their best aspects.
Tell us about the design process of your kimono dresses?
First we wanted to
keep the original shape, but adapt it in a more casual chic way, so we changed
the shape of sleeves to make them more open and comfortable. We decided to make
it shorter. And then of course we choose
some modern fabrics, so silk with neon colours and original prints.
Then for the
winter season we thought of another way to wear it, so as a jacket. That’s why
we have shorten it again. And we wanted to mix
it with other fabrics and other colors and the idea of adding leather sounded
interesting to us.
How do you describe your personal style, and do your
designs reflect this?
Our personal style is quite urban chic, but more
importantly we always wear some comfortable clothes, and that’s what we try to
always keep this in our design. We like to be chic, modern, feminine, sexy and
to feel comfortable.
Girls need to feel good in our clothes!
When you were setting up your brand, what challenges did you
face and how did you overcome them?
As we wanted to mix different influences and target both Asian and European
girls, it was hard to find shapes, design, colors etc… that could fit both, the
standards are totally different from one culture to another, but it was a great
challenge and it made us think outside the box.
Another difficulty was also the limited investment; we had to deal with
many things that were not our speciality in order to save some cost and to be more reactive as we can, to be in our perpetual movement of creation. Again
this made us learn and grow quite quickly.
What’s next?
The new winter collection is coming out this week, so many new items except
from the Kimonos, you can check our new website www.bubble-mood.com. And some pop up accessories are coming next month, along with other
limited editions items!
