MIR Stores: Voluminous sweaters and cardigans from Moscow
IN WEEKLY RUBRIC Wonderzine presents young designers and tells where and how you can buy their things. Our heroes this week are Katya and Alexey, the founders of a small brand MIR Stores, producing cozy sweaters and more.
The most difficult thing in updating your wardrobe is finding the ideal basic things: T-shirts, jeans, sweaters. The latter in particular. The most cherished version of natural wool without the addition of synthetics, extra accessories and decorations is often the most expensive in the store.
Knowing this simple truth, graduates of Moscow State University and NRU HSE - Katya and Alexey - founded in Moscow a brand with the name MIR, which stands for Made In Russia. They immediately decided to abandon the seasonal collections and to release certain items under ordinal numbers, thus showing respect for each customer. First Katya and Lesha made a pink cardigan with sleeves-lanterns - a very tiny, half-year-old child, for her friend Tanya, or rather, for her daughter. The thing was liked by many, and the model was launched into production - now the brand does it for women and girls of all ages. MIR Stores is gaining popularity precisely as a brand of knitted sweaters, although the plans of the guys are far-reaching - to create versatile things that will develop together into a one-piece wardrobe.
The founders of MIR Stores managed to create a small team that works under their strict guidance, and Katya creates all the prototypes herself. The guys are trying to make so that any model you like is released in different shades: to choose, you can choose both neutral and bright colors. It is recognized that the most popular was the complex "steel", a cross between gray and blue.
Now in the online store MIR Stores you can buy three female models of sweaters and one for each - for men and children. In the summer, the guys also released a line of textured crochet tops that fit any clothes, and also plan to repeat them next summer. All things MIR Stores are made in Russia from materials purchased right there: "We have several suppliers of raw materials, all our, domestic factories. The choice of Russian materials allows us to keep a fairly low price, and this is one of our main principles - we initially wanted to work in mass market segment. " Considering that the price for an “adult” sweater starts from 4900 rubles, they, unlike many, do it.
Right on the eve of the New Year, I left work, knowing that something very good was waiting for me next. New year we met in Rome. The euro was huge, about how to buy something cool from things, there was no question. Somehow, walking along Ville Borghese, we decided that on our return to Moscow we would try, as an experiment, to sew some clothes for ourselves - simple trousers, shirts, dresses. Once, already at home, I went to the nearest needlework store, bought the first favorite wool and knitting needles. Three days later, the first cardigan was ready, which later became the most popular model of our clothing brand MIR Stores.
The idea of the brand belonged to Lesha: he is a big fan of F. S. Fitzgerald and Evelyn Waugh and their heroes - students of the best universities in the USA and England, erudite, educated, with a sharp language and impeccable style. To dress so smartly, to look so noble and at the same time to approach this easily - we have put this principle into the basis of our brand and among ourselves call it a combination of two English words, "noble" and "easy". It is not at all about the style of those years, not about Gatsby and flappers, but about the attitude towards clothes and to oneself - light and with a little bit of humor.
We dream to make a complete wardrobe - to sew dresses, coats, trousers, to dress women and men in the style of intellectual fashion. But it is ahead. So far, we have decided to focus on knitwear - and create concise, simple, but not ordinary knitted things, not only cardigans and sweaters, but much more.
PHOTO: MIR Stores