When launching a fashion brand, most entrepreneurs struggle between having a kick-ass supply chain (like being sustainable) or great design. It’s tough for the two to co-exist. Yet, Co-Founder of AYNI, Adriana Cachay created a company both built on design and a story revolving around what goes on behind the scenes.

Born in Lima, Peru, Adriana always wanted to become a fashion designer. Coming from a conservative family, her father encouraged her to major in Business Administration followed by a Master’s in 2006 in Industrial Engineering. “My father thought that fashion would not be a lucrative career choice for me.” However, after working for three and a half years in marketing, she met her co-founder Laerke Skyum in Lima, and decided to create a brand on the building blocks of sustainability, community and fantastic designs, tremendously fantastic! (as Trump would say). Fast forward to 2011 and AYNI transformed from a hobby into a legit company.

“I want to empower women through our supply chain and help the country.”

*Co-Founders, Laerke Skyum on left and Adriana Cachay on right.*

For those know don’t know, Peru is known for its Pima cotton and crazy soft alpaca fabric. When searching for a manufacturer, Adriana tells us that it took her a couple of years to find the right set up. “No one was able to create our high fashion looks with the fabric blends we wanted. So, we set out to create our own supply chain.” Hence, AYNI empowers local artisans (mainly women) through micro-entrepreneurship. They engage in fair wages, build strong relationships and use sustainable materials. Their products are priced between $100- $800.

“We have 15 different workshops we run with over 200 employees. It feels like we manage multiple children as the women we work with from these communities choose companies based on mutual respect and communication. You have to be very empathetic with them because if they don’t like you, they won’t do the work.” In late 2016, Revolve was able to tour the AYNI supply chain and get up close and personal with these communities to showcase the best practices in Peru.

“Our identity is based on our supply chain. 80% of our collection is hand knitted and is what makes us different.”

It was due to their extraordinary supply chain that Adriana launched AYNI Design Lab (with the Peruvian government) and began sourcing and designing for Scandinavian brands. Some would even call them agents.

“Back in 2014, we were approached at a tradeshow in Copenhagen by a big company who wanted us to be their agents in Peru. It was a great opportunity, so we took it. We realized that it was a good strategy to promote Peruvian design without spending our own cash. This opened the market for us to start sourcing for other brands and gave us an edge to learn the process of how big brands operate.” As agents (we like to think the 007 kind) and designers, Adriana and Laerke didn’t have a lot of time to allocate towards brand building for AYNI. Most of their money was coming through sourcing and designing for other brands and the ladies were considering pivoting their business model for the long run.

The Death & Rebirth of AYNI

“We decided that given our time constraints, we would hold one last fashion show for AYNI, to say goodbye to the brand.” This was around the time that street style photographer, Scott Schuman came to Peru. It was backstage when Scott saw the girls in action and got inspired to take photos. “Scott was crucial in helping us. He told us that we had a beautiful story, but were not sharing it well. I felt that we were not ready to put ourselves out there. However, his advice was ‘you don’t need to talk about yourselves, you need to talk about what you do.’ From that moment on, we changed our mind.”

The Advice

Build your identity as a brand. It is very important to know why people would choose to buy you over others.
Choose the right suppliers because this is where your money is going to spent in the beginning.
Allocate budget to construct a good marketing strategy before launch. Otherwise, you will end up doing things that don’t work for you.
Find an accelerator to help scale your business. AYNI is currently part of one in Peru (they were one of the ten companies out of 400 to get selected).
Launch your product in the U.S. first and then expand to Europe if you choose.

Interested in sourcing pima cotton or alpaca? Adriana can help you. Email us and we’ll put you in touch.

Photo courtesy of AYNI.