VOICE OF MARKET Veronica Diaz Montalvo
– When did you develop your passion for the fashion industry? How did you understand that you want to become a designer? – I simply knew that I would be a designer. It has been a dream since my childhood. At 14 years old I started to go to the parties and events and I always went to the atelier and explained to the sewer everything I wanted to create. So, since that time I started to realise my own ideas. I went to Monterrey to start my career because there are many opportunities for development in this city. I did this because I had a great passion and loved the things that I created. I also had an opportunity to participate in a contest for designers in Mexico and I won two years in succession and since that all the doors in Mexico have been opened for me.
– Why is your brand unique? – We always think about making women more beautiful. At the same timeI create my clothes and care about the comfort of the body. It is a very specific art to make not only beautiful clothes but also comfortable. I do clothes that have perfect matches with everything. I think this position makes me unique.
– What is a woman of the Vero Diaz brand? What does she think about it? – This is a deep person. She looks elegant, classy and contemporary at the same time. Sometimes she can be glamorous and she isn’t scared to wear something unusual.
– How do you plan to develop your brand? – We had difficult times during the pandemic. We have been forced to be closed for 5 months. So now we need to recover and it is time to make ourselves better. Now we are opening a new store. We also turned our energy to our bridal brand and invested many sources into this area. We have an opportunity to make great bridal looks. It is an actual direction, because people still continue to get married. Thinking of the future, I want to have my own university of fashion design. I want to show young designers how to start and show all the steps of producing clothes, avoiding the mistakes. So we are working on that on the details.
– Your T-shirts “Mexicana Invencible” were created in collaboration with the fund of women’s organisations, who fight for gender equality in Mexico. How close is the theme of feminism to you?
– With the help of this collaboration we wanted to tell all women that we are invencible. It was a success! I always knew that we can do everything and it doesn’t matter who you are. It is very important to make sure a mexican woman can do everything because she is strong and confident. So it is good that we have a foundation that helps women to do something and raise their voice. We also donate 10% from each sold T-shirt. I love this kind of help, because I can have courage and inspire people. They have an opportunity to be better.
– What inspires you? – When I have to do something in a short period, I do it much better. When I am in a stressful line I do real creative things. Also when I sleep I have dreams. My husband told me that I even can speak about dresses when I’m sleeping! It’s unbelievable!
– What do you think about the transition of fashion into a virtual format? – For my brand it is a good opportunity to develop. I am grateful for having more time for work during the pandemic. When the pandemic started and everything became digital, at first it was difficult, but then it became easy to communicate with somebody in virtual format. When you do something digital you need to do everything quick and be fast and be everywhere in one moment. As a result, we’ve become better than ever and improved our networking, social media and changed our image. I missed the runways.The contact with our viewers is very important for me. But the virtual shows have their advantages too: we have a huge amount of spectators!
– What do you think about consumers? Will they become more calm or will they want to have a “party” after Covid? – When the lockdown started, the sales stopped. So we decided to make an outlet to sell the previous collections. We sold everything! After that we changed our way of design to make our clothes more comfortable. But the bridal collection was still actual!
– Let’s talk about Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. This year it was held in phygital format. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this format? – For me the real life format is really better. In a real presentation you have a real adrenaline, you can bring your audience and have a real experience. It is so amazing! When you have just a video you find it difficult to make people see this video. I love to have a community in the moment and share with them emotions.
– What are the specific moments on working preparation for a virtual show on Fashion Week? – For the virtual presentation you need to make a video. So, I controlled every process! You should do something unusual that people want to see and that will amaze themself. You need to create an “environment” related to the title and the history of your collection. It is so difficult!
– You also participated in Mexico Mercedes- Benz Fashion Week. What are the similarities and differences between our two countries? – The presentation is similar, the platform and the media are not the same, but also similar. But in other things our Fashion weeks have huge differences, especially in communication. Mexico has a very good diffusion of communicating. At Mexico Fashion week all people are participating to help the designers. It is the union sense! I think we just have different cultures and ways of seeing, but everybody has its taste.