There are two things we can learn from sistersFlorentia Jeanne and Felicia Febry. First, that sharing the same interest with your sister can bring you closer to each other, and second, if done right, it can alsobringyou money.
Florentia and her younger sister Felicia teamed together to embrace their love for fashion by cofounding a fashion brand calledNoonaKu Signature.
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According to them, Noona loosely means "me and my sister" and Ku means "God." When combined, the name means "me and my sister belong to God."
Under the brand, Florentia and Felicia create girly yet elegant collections of womens clothing to satisfy the needs and tastes of todays young ladies.
They try to offer something we all love:quality goods at affordable price.
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Can you tell us how you started NoonaKu?
Felicia: This business started from a small project that we did during our college years, you know, to make extra money. We've always been fans of fashion. One day we started to sell some clothes to our friends and quite surprisingly we received good response. We started to sell more and get items from bigger suppliers. After a while, we managed to make enough money to start making our own products.
So you started as a reseller. Why did you decide to make your own products? Isnt it much easier to simply get them from suppliers?
Florentia: Right from the start, we have a dream to make our own products, so we can establish our own brand. But we didnt have money, the tools, the resources, and other things. So initially, we decided to be a reseller to make money and raise capital.
Once were able to make our own products, we watched the market to know the current trends. We also tried to fulfill the needs and concerns of teenagers. For example, we found out some teenagers dont like sleeveless tops that can reveal theirbig upper-arms, stuff like that.
(Photo: doc. NoonaKu)
(Photo: doc. NoonaKu)
Felicia: We have ideas of our own, and by producing our clothes, we can realize those ideas and vision. We can also set the budget, get the best materials at the lowest possible price, and set the price of the products by ourselves to reach teenage and young adult markets.
Why teenagers? Isnt the potential income from the working women market much bigger?
Felicia: We want to accommodate the needs of teenagers and young adults because we think they dont have much choice that can meet their budget for fashion products.
They remind us of ourselves in our younger years, when we didnt really have money to buy expensive fashion items. Thus we want to make quality clothes that are affordable. We are also focused on providing our customers more wearable pieces, so we tend to explore basic designs.
Do you have any plan to make a premium collection?
Florentia: We already have premium collections, actually. We have released our batik collections, in which we explored batik as our identity. We want to show that we, Indonesians, have a very beautiful textile that can be stylish too. We want to show that batik is for everyone, including young people. Using batik, we created designs that are suitable for teenagers and young women to show that batik can be fashionable, not only for mature people but for youngsters as well.
We also created a premium line which is only sold in certain e-commerce, such as Line Shopping and other online shops.
Have you ever encounter any unforgettable moments along the way?
Florentia: Were glad to know that our business is growing rapidly, especially after we started selling and promoting our brand on some e-commerce sites. We also have resellers, which many of them are secondary school students. We remember when one of NoonaKus resellers, who is only a teenager, told us that she eventually managed to buy her parents a house by installment. Thats just amazing! Were happy to know that people love our products and they sell well, but what makes us believe in this business is that we can also help people makingaliving. Were on the right track, I believe.
Florentia and Felicia are now exploring further to seize more challenges, as their customers grow rapidly, as well as their resellers. They haveset up a legally authorized company, with NoonaKus new boutique and office located in Green Lake City, West Jakarta.