It’s nice to see you here again. 2023 feels great, and Ladiesse blogs are here once again o bless your eyes, wardrobe, and sense of style.
This time, I have something special planned out for you special people. I personally am very excited for this entry, because it feels way more personal and gives you a closer look into Ladiesse.
In the past week, I gathered some information about one of our gorgeous brands called Otrera in order to make you feel a little closer to us, as well as Otrera. Here’s what our interview with Otrera included, in detail and with no filter :)
What does your brands background look like? How did Otrera become the brand it is now?
In 2020, We (Benek Karaca and Çiğdem Yuvacan) established
Otrera, and despite the pandemic, we took our place in the leading brands of Turkey in about 2 years. We continue our sales both from our website and our showroom in Istanbul, have domestic and international sales channels and We sell our bags all over the world.
What is Otrera’s story? What does the name mean under the brands perspective
Otrera is inspired by the Queen of the Amazon Women “Otrera”. She is known as the goddess of strong, warrior, determined women of Anatolia. Building on that, We wanted to emphasize that women are fertile, productive and strong, believe in themselves in order to exist in life and have all kinds of power they need.
We dreamed of offering timeless, stylish, high quality bags to women who know what they want in their life and define themselves and style very clearly. By blending this with the natural leathers and quality materials we use, we focused on showing our collections that we have developed continuously with our selectivity and business discipline without compromising our design and sewing quality by working with the best masters in the sector.
What are your inspirations for you designs? What does the thought process look like when a new bag is coming to be?
First of all, as a brand, we take our collection process very seriously. We follow fashion and trends. We get inspired by an event we experience, a work of art we see, mythology, and even the conflict of Istanbul traffic we live every day. In each new season, we first put our concept on the table with our design team. We make drawings and create mockups. We work on it until it reaches the final result. No model is ever finished though, we constantly conduct market research for new materials and continue to develop our iconic models, including LEDA. We love to come across those who love us every season with innovations.
What are your ultimate goals and aspirations for Otrera?
It is our biggest dream to see Otrera among its powerful world brands. We are excited about this. We continue to take our steps with determination to tell our story and become greater. As a brand, what do you think establishes good products and quality style? The bag and purse market is a sector where competition is extremely intense and common. The most important element that determines the good and quality is to make production without sacrificing original design, innovations and quality workmanship and without spending the resources of the world ...
What would you define fashion as?
Fashion is change ... A stance for a certain period is a way of expressing itself. However, in this change, it is the pioneer of that change on the one hand, but also to reveal timeless pieces. This is exactly what Otrera's fashion understanding and goal.
What do you consider the most important facets of the fashion and purse industry?
It is safe to say after the pandemic, the world entered a new era. Our priority is our world while consuming and producing. The concept of fast fashion is now replaced by slow fashion . In other words, production with natural materials, resistant, quality, timeless models. This is our philosophy. While making profits, we aim to develop social responsibility, sustainability, transparency and other business practices. We attach importance to functionality in our collections, we turn to models with multi -option and ease of use. For example, we can combine both the shoulder stalk and cross stalk and belt options in a single model.
Where do you stand on sustainability? What are some special things Otrera offers to its consumers?
Otrera’s mission is to be able to produce without harming the world, spending resources in vain, without compromising on quality. Although we like exotic leather tissues as a brand, we never use real exotic leather. Because we do not tolerate the feeding and killing of any living thing for the skin. We use cow skin, so the leather is a by -product of meat production. We prefer to give crocodile and snake skin effect by printing method on the cow skin. Of course, there are a number of chemical processes that must be used in order to use the skin as material in the sector. As in the whole developed world, these processes are controlled by strict environmental rules and standards in Turkey. We both produce these standards in our factory in Istanbul and demand certificates from other manufacturers that we provide our skins to meet the environmental standards. We do not use the cheap, unidentified skin from the Far Eastern countries produced in facilities under the stairs without any certificate.
Does Otrera have any workers unions? What social responsibility facts does Otrera prioritize with its workers?
We work in full harmony with business health and safety regulations. We do not employ child labor, and most importantly, we respect employee rights. All our employees earn income above the minimum wage. Our company is supervised by the Social Security Institution of the State at regular intervals.