André Namitala, Handred

0:14Hello and welcome to the special episode of the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco, and for today's show I speak with the founder and designer of Brazilian brand Rundred, André Namitala. For the latest collection of the brand, he teamed up with the Sergio Rodrigues Institute to create a beautiful collection inspired by the major Brazilian furniture designer.

0:41André Namitala from 100, which I have to say is one of my favorite Brazilian brands. Every time I go to Brazil, I have to go to the 100 shop. So it's a pleasure talking to you here, André. Before we talk about the new collection, which is very special, which is inspired by the great Sergio Rodrigues, explain to us a little bit more about the brand. I know you are the founder. When actually 100 started? Hey, nice to meet you. Great talking to you as well. 100 started 2012. So it's been 11 years since the beginning. I actually, I started studying law school for a year and quickly found out that it was not my thing.

1:22So in the middle of the course, I started a job in fashion and it kind of like changed my mind. And since the first job, I was actually tasked to go to New York City for a research trip. And the combination of starting working with fashion and already coming to New York to research, my mind was so much wider. And when I came back to Brazil after a month there, I decided that I was going to keep up with the fashion and that it was actually fulfilled me in so many parts because I wasn't just designing. I was researching, I was understanding the people outside, I was coming to the stores and getting to know how the business was developed.

2:07I was also creating, so it was a job that I kind of understood that being a creative director was doing a lot of things that I like, like becoming very close to the photographers, doing the conceptual part of the shooting and the films and everything, also designing, also looking for materials, being in the atelier. So I quickly understood that that was my goal in life. Now I was going to ask as well, because I wanted to know more where are you from in Brazil as well, because it's a brand from Rio, right? Yes, exactly. I was born in Rio, raised in Rio, still living in Rio. I'm actually divided between São Paulo and Rio, but the atelier is actually in Rio.

2:52and we have two stores here as well. Sao Paulo, we have three stores. But Sao Paulo, as you know, is a bigger city and more... You don't have the beach in Sao Paulo, so people have to buy clothes and wear clothes. It's different than here. You have the beach, so you're barely almost naked every time. And it's a very warm city. In Sao Paulo, you have the industry, you have all the fashion brands, you have the runway show, you have the fashion week. So Sao Paulo is a city that for us is the market is more open. But the atelier and the brand was born in Rio with me in 2012. I started with a small line of shirts.

3:33Like I think it was five shirts, five models. And I didn't know anyone in fashion, actually. So it was like I literally was wearing my clothes and trying to go outside and trying to go to places that I know that the fashion people would be. So I was literally like wearing my shirts and trying to get to notice. And I remember there was this guy, Jose Camarano, which is a stylist here in Brazil. He was opening a pop-up store in Ipanema and he saw me wearing one of my clothes and he said, do you want to sell here? And I said, yes, definitely. So it was my first commercial deal and it was very successful.

4:11And the clothes already, like I think one of the shirts went to a newspaper. and then the awareness of the brand was starting to get to know and it was it so i literally was was selling one shirt to to buy the more fabrics to make the new collection and it was very organically it still is very organic because i don't have partner i don't have an investor so it's an independent brand until so i think that was pretty much the beginning and it feels to me that you you guys have a kind of a solid expansion because i remember i'm from sao paulo i was so excited when you opened the store in Jardins and now I see you are at a shop in Guatemi which is you know a great address in the city of Sao Paulo as well so it's growth kind of but you know organically as you said right yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean actually when I opened the store here in Rio in Ipanema it was a very surprising thing to me like I opened the first store in 2017 so five years after I launched the brand and then I only have one store at the time so I was literally living in the store so every day i was in the store i was selling i was i was getting to know the customers i was i was there like i was on the sales floor and every weekend and every holiday the whole sao paulo crew came to rio and that was surprising to me because there was always like a small like a small fight between rio and sao paulo and and like no you're the city you're the you're the beach city so i was very surprised that everybody from sao paulo was coming to spend holidays and weekends in Rio.

5:43And it was funny because like 90 % of my sales in that day was from people from São Paulo. And okay, I was noticing it. I was thinking I was a bit shocked. And like from the second month of the store in Rio opened everybody was asking, when are you going to open São Paulo? Where are you opening São Paulo? When are you going to open São Paulo? And the question, I thought it was funny at first, but like coming into like after six months the question was a routine and then i said okay i have to think about sao paulo and then i started like doing some events in sao paulo like through some multi-brand stores that i that i used to sell and then i remember i did one in pattinga it's a multi-brand stores in jardins very close to my to my store right now and they i never had that much amount of sales in one day and then i said okay there was a click i need to come to sao paulo and actually my store is just one street after Pinga, my first store.

6:44And then I remember the feeling of coming to the store, the empty store, and it was so big, so much bigger than the one that I had in Rio. And I thought it would be like a lot, much more expensive here. And no, that was the difference between Rio and São Paulo. The rental in Rio is so much more expensive than São Paulo. And when I find out that that store that was so big was actually cheaper than the one that I have in Rio, I said, okay, this is it. So it was very much of a coincidence as well, because the pavements in front of the store is actually the same pavements of Copacabana Beach. So it was funny because I was opening a store in Sao Paulo, but with the like the same pavements and the same feeling of Rio.

7:25And it was actually a success. It's the first month, the store in Jardins. And it's a big store. The same year that I opened the store in Sao Paulo, I joined the fashion week there as well so it was like 2018 was a was a very special year for 100 because like the audience was broader in that year it was meant to be the pavement by the way yeah exactly no no but andrea uh let's talk about the new collection which is extremely exciting because it is based on the work and life of sergio rodrigues the iconic furniture designer from brazil and you know to be honest as a brazilian when i think of brazil one of the names that come to my head is Sérgio Rodrigues.

8:06Tell us your experience with Sérgio Rodrigues and how come he became this inspiration for this collection which is out now. Yeah, I'm going to start a little bit earlier. I think from 2018 or 2019 100 started to getting more closer to Brazilian culture regarding our teams of the collections. So I kind of like was liking to jump in a little bit further through the themes and through like historical cities in Brazil, such as Salvador, such as Oro Preto. And then we kind of like created like this kind of this kind of a pattern that our collections would be will be grounded and through until through a very deep research of Brazilian culture regarding a city, regarding a person, regarding an artist.

9:00And then in 2019, I guess, before the pandemic, I was invited from MACHP, the museum, to create three pieces to stay in the archive of MACHP. And then there was the pandemic, and I delivered my project, and next year there will be an exhibition there. So that specific occasion that a museum invited me to create some pieces to stay in the museum, It was kind of like an affirmation that, okay, that thing of researching Brazilian culture is something that is coming back. It's reflecting a very quick result into me and especially with the audience that I would like to talk. Also, a coincidence, since the first store, we had a very, very, very considered amount of architects buying in our stores.

9:54So our conversation, our design, our layout of the store was very much like into a Brazilian modernist movement from the 50s and the 60s. So we have like very straight lines with wood, glass, a little bit of like non, not so much cliche tropical plants in the store. So we decided that the way we're going to talk about Brazil wasn't the tropical version known as Brazil. We would talk through a modernist way of like a modernist class. And then after Maspi, I had a thing with Brennan, like the artist from Pernambuco. And the Institute was opening by then in 2012, 2020. And I decided that I would like to talk to them to create a collection.

10:44and then the Brennan collection was actually a shift for us because I was I was creating a collection based on a also a major Brazilian artist that other people would knew before 100 so I was associating myself with with a bigger name and and a name that I admire so much and we we decided that the collection was so big that we wanted to film a short documentary we would do a small like publication we call zini here and then the runaway show and we also had a show like a concert a concert in the middle of the runaway show with an artist from recife and that project led me to sad because the people from the culture was seeing 100 much more like out of the sudden every every art gallery owner was buying 100 they were there people from when it's happening like a biennial in sao paulo or the art fair in sao paulo i forgot the name the people would come to 100 to buy clothes so we're kind of getting into this niche of architectures and art so sergio for me was since the beginning since my first job when i changed from law the owner of the of the brand that i used to work had a chair from sergio and i remember I was very raw.

12:09I didn't know anything about history. I was studying law school, so my mind wasn't very much open for the arts and the movement that Brazil was through before. And I was very impressed with the chair because I didn't know why it caused me so much impressions. And then I understood that the chair itself was only made by two materials, wood and leather. And even so, with only using two materials and very very much straight lines that that furniture it was sophisticated but in not in the opulent way there was a different kind of sophistication that i loved and the fact that it was only it was only chosen two materials to make it it kind of gave me like the meaning of finishing so the finishing of of that furniture with only two materials could create something with that amount of impression and that amount of feelings and the fact that it was very well done it kind of it teaches me what was the finishing that i was going to work with my clothes so 100 itself it only uses like silk and linen and we don't have much we don't have like a we don't use how do i say we're we're more concerned about the construction of the clothes and the finishing inside of the clothes than the then the fashion uh what is on the streets at the time so i think that that saggio first impression of the chair kind of led me to to understanding that you you don't need much in the clothes you just need some good finishing and some good sewing and some good materials because even if you're only using one material that clothes can talk for itself so after seeing that chair i kind of look at it and said okay when i have my first salary when i have my first income i will buy something of sergio and then it kind of i kind of created this thing with with him i started studying about sergio and about the movement and about brasilia and about oscar and about all the others furniture designers from Brazil back then and the shift that Brazil was going through the area when we were kind of saying goodbye to the European way of like getting the furniture inside of the houses because Brazilia was being built with a very Brazilian way of Oscar M.I.O.

14:39lines and the furniture wasn't going with it. So Sergio was actually the first designer that wanted to create the Brazilian furniture. And that's why he's so special and that's why he brought Brazil outside. Anyway, so I think Sergio opened so much ways for me to get more studies about Brazil, to understanding more about furniture, to collecting Sergio and understanding the meaning of Brazil for outside the world. I think that was the thing. And before we talk some of the highlights of the collection as well, So I'm curious because, of course, you have a market in Brazil, as you say, you have stores in Sao Paulo, Rio.

15:20Do you have plans to sell your clothes internationally? How is that? Because that would be quite nice to see, you know, a beloved Brazilian brand by many to see it in other countries as well. Yeah, actually, since the beginning, since I created 100, I always wanted to sell abroad. but it's very tricky to begin a brand independent to already think like selling outside. So it was very nice to me that I focused all my efforts of creating my structure here, finding the people to sell, finding the right suppliers and finding my retail operation. And since 2020, we started selling through Farfetch International.

16:02And it was very nice because we didn't have much marketing. We were just there. We just launched the webpage through Fafet. And a lot of our classics from the collection, our carryovers, was being sold through Hong Kong, through California, through a lot of places. And since we opened the store in Ipanema as well, we had during our summer holidays, you know, you're Brazilian, you know as well, but we have a lot of people from America and from Europe, especially from france and from new york coming to brazil during that time and they make our revenues grow so much because the the currency is different so they buy a lot of our clothes and then we were always surprised about the amount of of clothes and the amount of sales that was made being made for uh for this kind of customers so after it we we launched it at fafetch and we also have good results.

17:01And since last year, we were kind of beginning with this project of coming internationally. So we did a year of studies of our marketing, our competitors, our price range, our operation, how it would be. So this year in June, I did the Tranoi. It's a trade show in Paris. They are partnered with the Fashion Week. So I did our first season in June and it was very interesting we sold through to a store named Antonia which is a very referenced store in Milan which was very surprising because it's much more than I was expecting very very very honestly saying because it's a very well-known store in Milan they have two in Milan and they have three in Asia and it's very luxury it's very like they sell all the designers that I admire as well so So being chosen from Antonia was very shocking to me.

17:55And we are doing the second season now with the Sergio collection, but a winter version of Sergio collection. I'm doing it in January, mid-January. So we are looking for it. Let's talk about the collection because I looked at it. I mean, some incredible pieces. I mean, first of all, tell us about some of the prints. I love the cargo gray shorts. I'm obsessed. Next time in Brazil, I need to get one. The linen shirt with this kind of the lovely kind of little print. Tell us about some of the highlights of the pieces. I think when I started the project with the Institute, I was very surprised because everybody knows Sergio here as a furniture designer, as an architect.

18:38But I didn't have the idea that Sergio was like a drawing machine. He has so much drawings. And the way that he presented his projects from the interiors he used to draw like everything in the scene so he would draw the chair but with the people in it with the dog under the chair with the book open on the table with the shelters full of books and a person wearing animal printed suit smoking cigarettes with glasses from the 60s with the hair up so that was very surprising because he used to draw all the atmosphere that would go inside one of his projects. So I kind of wanted to bring it to the prints because it's a side of Sergio that I don't think a lot of people knew.

19:28So one of the prints, it was just the project itself with the architects and with the layouts. The other was very focused on the people he used to draw, like the characters with the clothes and with the glasses and everything and it's in black and white and the other one is it's a print that one of the mirrors that i that i most love uh of him which is cuyabah mirror he used uh he designed this mirror to a to a hotel in in brazil and i kind of did a plate over it so i did a print that was the repetition of that mirror that would create a check or plate or something like that and one of the highlights is actually that I, from that mirror, I kind of recreated the same project that Sergio did for that mirror.

20:19And I did it in a very, very small scale. It was made by wood and mirror itself. So we sold all these little mirrors, one another, and we built a cloth over it. So for me, that was one of the highlights. And of course, in the runway, all the lights were reflecting that piece itself. I think the way that I appropriated my techniques with the furniture techniques, like so we have a lot of volume pieces with materials to make it puff, the same material that you use on chairs and that you use on sofas. We did a technique with, it's called capitone in Brazil, I don't know how it says in English, but it's a way of, it's a technique that you use on leather that you put some buttons on it with a pression.

21:04And so it kind of created, how do I say, a puff feeling into it. I love the way that we did some, the piece you said, the cargo piece itself, because Sergio used to, he used to work with wood. And so he was like a character of itself, of himself. So he was always like wearing cargo pants or cargo vests. So he had a certain look that I wanted to translate into some pieces. So that more, the amount of pockets in one piece and the way that the pattern was being created to held this amount of pockets. But also mixing it with leather. So it was a very nice way to think about scale. So I think that collection was a shift from what I was doing before, because one that I kind of brought like wood, mirror, and a lot of leather that I never used leather before, and with our tailoring.

22:11So I was surprised that I was still doing the same tailoring that I was doing, but with another platform. That's amazing. Listen, André, congratulations. You're talking here to a fan of the brand.

22:27That was André Namitala from 100. For more information, go to 100.com.br. The Monaco Weekly was edited by Sarah Nico, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. Thank you for listening.