Fashion Peach

By Catalina Castillo

Writing about creative processes has allowed me to meet people who have significant power in working with human-artisanal capital, people, who invest in creative growth, inspiring and forging knowledge to create and generate companies in the country.

Catalina Marin, Creative Director of Nora Lozza, has projected a great work since her arrival at the leather goods brand that is positioning itself strongly in foreign markets. She speaks with great pride of the work team that has accompanied her in her creative vision.

Tradition, luxury, design and expertise in the world of leather are the primary essence of Nora Lozza, she has been in the Colombian market for 37 years. Its founder, Nohora Loza, an industrial engineer from Bumanguesa, learned important techniques of Italian leather goods. Today, his daughter Catalina, talks to us about the challenges he assumes from the area of creativity and execution.

«The value is not in manufacturing, manufacturing can anyone, we must create a brand, raise the design and put ourselves at the height of a design of international stature»

How did you get to Nora Lozza Creative Direction?

My mom has the expertise in leather as well as the Italian training, she is a woman of industrial production. In terms of brand, in creative terms, that’s not my mom. She is supremely practical. When I came to this project quite a few years ago I told him: this is a diamond in the rough, but we must refocus the value. The value is not in manufacturing because anyone can manufacture, we must create a brand, raise the design and put ourselves at the height of design internationally.

With the internet came the economic opening, international brands arrived in Colombia, so the gap between the local brand and the international brand opened much more, because these international brands have experience, they arrive with stories and complete worlds behind a product, the gap between that and the local industry was big.

I arrived at a formed company, this has allowed me to be, create and lead the area of creative direction. I think the hardest thing for us creatives is definitely doing business;  Not only is inventing a product, this can be «easy» but run it, go, produce it, not only create prototypes, produce them on time, produce them on the scales that are needed to have the possibility of growing and meeting demands with international customers, also have happy staff, take care of it, love it, have cash flow to pay for the entire operation, also have the skill and cunning to know how to navigate in difficult seasons and important seasons.

«The challenge of a true creator is to take something that visually stimulates him, be inspired by it and with that inspiration experiment on a personal level»

How is your creative process?

It has evolved a lot; I am defining more and more the codes of Nora Lozza. Sometimes, immersing yourself in the world of trends is very easy, where you are looking there is information, colors, and influences.  The challenge of a true creator is to take something that visually stimulates him, be inspired from there and with that inspiration experiment on a personal level, we, with my team, create a lot based on experimentation and that product development takes us a lot of time.

How many people are part of Nora Lozza? Tell me about your team.

Now we are 70 people, at one point we were 100. In 2000, with the fall of the dollar, my mom cut staff, was left with half of the people and with the operators. Now we are growing again, we are 70 people.

What would you advise those people who want to create a brand without falling into being a «copy»? Let’s talk about personal DNA.

Creating something new is a great challenge, I reiterate to my team the importance of referents, they must also question where they come from. The process must be transparent. From the above an idea can emerge and that idea can be reinterpreted with a personal DNA.

What happens when you copy something? In the local industry, for example, you can supply an aspirational local market, but you will not be able to grow as a company, you will stay in a niche, a very small segment where you simply obey a copy.

What has been the main challenge from the creative direction of Nora Lozza?

To arrive at an already established organization, to arrive where there was a cacique. Very difficult, my vision was empirical, I was taking the duty of my mother, of years, of her whole life. For a long time, I felt swimming against the current, I had the challenge of selling the idea to her and a whole team, then little by little, we worked, we began to really do a creative process work, experimenting with new materials, capturing new ideas, the above with a clear schedule.

How do you define the brand, Nora Lozza?

I like the idea of a standout design, something unconventional but that can be used by any woman, not necessarily the woman in the fashion industry. In terms of design, I persist in an important level of detail, intention, color, which is not simple. I wish that product could be used by any woman, not necessarily a woman in the fashion industry.

How do you envision the brand in 10 years?

I want to continue to climb the level, naturally human beings always want to have that idea of evolution and that idea of reaching new markets, I want to continue raising the level of the product in terms of materials, construction.

A favorite color?

Before I liked navy blue a lot, then I went through a season of neon pink, now I like apple green. When I conceptualize the collections, I tell my team that we are going to go for a monochromatic line and at some point, I feel inspired by radiant colors, I am fascinated by combining unexpected colors.