MOre successful Croatian innovation.
Marijana Prgomet and Romana Jelinčić have a degree from the Faculty of Economics, while Ivana Pamuković has graduated from the School of Design at the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb. “Work, work, and creativity. And some more work” – that is the answer given by Marijana, Romana and Ivana if you ask them about the secret of success of their brand Mustra, specially designed T-shirts made of high-quality cotton, which have become a real hit in Croatia. And the T-shirts truly are “Made in Croatia” products, reports Poslovni.hr on October 31, 2015.
“We work at midnight, at 3 in the morning, in fact, whenever our job requires it. Internet never sleeps and therefore the life of our brand does not stop when the last customer leaves. A lot of the work is done ‘behind the scenes’, and must be done every day. Inventory accounting, suppliers, reports, paperwork and records, orders… these are all things that you have to deal with so that at the end of the day we can have Mustra as the final product. Brand is like a clock; you see what time it is, how the clock looks like and how much it costs, but behind it there are hundreds of wheels, and if only one wheel stops – the whole clock will fail as well”, the entrepreneurs say.
They are very proud that each of their shirts is a completely Croatian product. “This means that, with the exception of the material itself, which is imported, everything else is produced, hand-sewn and printed in Croatia. We buy the material in bulk from Turkey. It is a high-quality 100% cotton which cannot be bought on our market. The cotton goes to a workshop where T-shirts are made, with designs, labels and declarations. For every T-shirt we have designed the packaging in the form of jute bags with a drawstring which is also branded. After that, the shirts go to a printing press where on each we custom print one of the 90 motifs which are currently on offer. We pack the T-shirts in the jute bags and that is the final product. Each model of shirt is available in male and female sizes. All visual motifs – design, illustrations, texts and photographs – are our own creative ideas”, Marijana, Romana and Ivana proudly say.
Their shirts made of high-quality cotton with ISO 9001 certification and an eco-test are bought by people outside Croatia as well. “So far, we have sold our T-shirts to all continents except Antarctica. This makes us very happy. The designs are not only in Croatian, but also in English, so we often get inquiries from non-Croats and we are planning to start a serious advertising campaign on foreign markets as well.”
