In summer 2015 I worked a few days at Lowlands, one of the biggest music festivals in the Netherlands. It wasn’t a fun job, it was just an easy way of entering the festival without spending money. On the first day I met a guy who year after year sneaked in by climbing the fence. Because I already regretted my boring job, I made the promise to climb with him next year if I couldn’t find another nice way to enter.
On the last festival day when I watched all these market stands with design products, I told myself “next year you are having your own market stand”, not knowing what I would sell or how I would do it. That same day I lost my cap, a simple black snapback, so back home I started to search for a replacement. I wanted a more unique cap with aztec print but couldn’t find one, so I decided to design it myself. Unfortunately the factory wouldn’t accept the order, unless the quantity would be 100 pieces per design. At that point I thought whatever, let’s do it, I will sell them somehow. Even though I never studied something like art, fashion, or marketing (actually, I didn’t study at all, except for Spanish), I knew I could do it.
I started with an order of 500 pieces and soon I ordered many more. Even though a lot of people tried to discourage me, I just let them talk, kept working like crazy and added T-shirts, hoodies and beanies to the collection. After one year I got a message from the fence climber, asking if I was still in to climb. But in that 1 year I had already climbed from “nothing” to “having my own brand”, so that I got invited to the festival market and didn’t have to climb the fence anymore ?
Linda ♥