Looking back means looking to values of traditions, quality, uniqueness, the Italian know-how in the sense of carrying out the ‘Made in Italy’ value.  We are living in an era where the ‘Made in Italy’ value is going the same way of a dinosaur; it is on verge of extinction. It pleases our heart to discover brands that know that history is an important key in the Made in Italy value.

Gleni is a luxury bag brand that illustrates  the fact that in the age where things are easy thrown away because of bad quality, there is still a place for timeless classic and enduring quality. The bag brand that is proudly and genuinely Made in Italy is on mission to bring high-quality exotic bag construction to a new generation of forward-thinking consumers. We met with the owners of the brand Tatiana Miroshina and her daughter Katerina during Milan Fashion Week Emerging Talents show, and spoke about the history of the brand, its values and traditional craftsmanship.

Spy News Magazine: Can you tell us about your brand? Where did the idea come from?

Tatiana: Gleni started from two people with the same believe: happiness comes from within. This happiness inside them drove them to realize their dream. Our brand isn’t born right away, but it grew and evolved with its founders, developing its values. One of the two founders, Arben Qoku, had a motto that continued to inspire the company: “Dreams can come true”.

Not only dreams are achievable, but they are always by our side, guiding us in the decisions we make. One of the main dreams was to always stay true to himself. This became the most important value of our brand: our company doesn’t adapt to the latest trends, it doesn’t follow the rules of fashion, but it just wants to share its vision to people that would likely appreciate it. We want that our customers, when wearing our products, feel like a wish came true.

The name of the brand comes from “glen”, which is a valley with a watercourse running through it. Like the watercourse that runs through a glen, our brand continues to renovate and never stop running, without renouncing to the values that inspired us and that will continue to guide us as we grow.

Spy News Magazine: A lot has been said about fashion not being responsible enough, especially in the luxury segment which involves the killing of exotic animals. What do you think the fashion brands and the industry can do in order to be more responsible?

Tatiana:  That is a fundamental and interesting topic. We use to say that world it not black or white and it’s not divided into good people that don’t kill animals and bad people that kill animals.  The leather we use is always certified by CITES, a convention that regulates the trade of endangered species of flora and fauna. When buying the raw material, is important to know where it comes from and how it was obtained and be sure that it will not damage nature.

When coming to exotic leather, it’s important to buy only CITES certified leather that don’t come from illegal hunt: CITES has, in fact, helped in the survival of different animals and their habitats and the fighting against illegal hunter by receiving funds from the trade of exotic skins. Each participating company pays taxes that will support the legal trade.

We believe that the most important thing is to educate customers about it so they will buy consciously or, on the contrary, won’t buy consciously. We don’t think that fashion industry is not responsible enough, we just think that it does not provide enough information to the customer. For this reason, we post a lot about CITES information on our websites.

Spy News Magazine: What are the greatest sources of inspiration for your works and what effect go into creating a GLENI bag?

Tatiana: We are inspired by nature, by its infinite colours, by the emotions that it evokes. We are also inspired by the everyday feeling and by desires – even those desires that seem small and futile, but that make us feel complete and satisfied when are fulfilled.

Spy News Magazine: Italy is famous for her ingenious traditional craftsmanship, how does your brand stand out?

What really plays for our benefit, is the fact that we are a small company: thanks to that we can pay attention to all those things that other luxury brands don’t care about. We carefully select the leather, we take notice of details and specifics. Most of all, we create single pieces handbags with unique characters: each bag is given a „past“ and a „emotion“. One day, each bag will find an owner whose past and feelings will be mirrored in it.

Spy News Magazine: How do you want your customer to feel when they wear pieces?

Tatiana: Most of all, we want our customers to feel unique in their own way and be confident about that. We have always supported the uniqueness that makes everyone different. Our handbags are not meant to be just an added piece to a collection that will soon stay in the closet, covered with dust. A GLENI bag is made to make you feel complete; to let you feel the way you want to feel. A GLENI bag is not made to please seasonal trends, but to be the perfect accessory to fit your own style: it doesn’t need to be matched to your clothes, but to your mood and spirit.

Spy News Magazine: The first and the most important job of any brand is to tell its story. How are you leveraging social media in telling your brand’s story?

Tatiana: Our company is basically an e-commerce with customers all over the world that we can’t see personally, so communication is really important. What we try to do is to give our customers the best customer service we can achieve, with our 4 Facebook pages and our Instagram profile.

We post pictures of handbags and their details, we share our blog posts about CITES and leather and we also do some advertising for our small town with pictures of the sea.

Spy News Magazine: What future plans do you have for GLENI?

Tatiana: Grow stronger. Also, even more peculiar collections: gemstones and precious metals for example, women shoes and matching sets (shoes-handbag).

Spy News Magazine: Where can we buy your products?

Tatiana: If you want to be really sure that you are buying a genuine GLENI bag, you should buy on one of our online boutiques. (We have four of them, each one in a different language for different countries: www.gleniboutique.it for Italy, www.gleniboutique.fr for France, www.gleniboutique.ru for Russia and all Russian speaking countries and www.gleniboutique.com for all English speaking countries.) Also, you can visit us in San Benedetto del Tronto and get special prices in our Boutique in Risorgimento street. We would love to introduce ourselves to our customers, tell them the story behind of every single product and let them touch with their hand the quality.

We are strengthening our presence in different luxury boutiques, by developing a „Corner program“ so our products could have a very special and bespoke spot. So, if you want to be sure about the genuineness of the product, call us and ask about luxury boutiques in your city.

 

By Anderson Azugbene