SUSTAINABLE CLOTHING BUSINESS DRAWS INSPIRATION FROM NANA
Participants in ABF’s Business Academy for Starting Entrepreneurs don’t wait around for things to happen: they carve their own per- sonal and professional paths in life. Mariana Barakchieva gave up a comfortable life and a well-paid engineering job in Switzerland for a life of pursuing mountain adventures and building her own sustainable clothing business in Bulgaria. Mariana may be new to selling her handicrafts, but she has been making things since she was a child, when she crafted notebooks and nailed together furniture for her sisters’ dolls. Watching her great grandmother — nanka in the local Rhodope Mountain dialect — sew on an old Singer sewing machine was another favorite childhood activity.
It was the great grandmother’s craft Mariana turned to two decades later when conven- tional professional achievement was no longer enough to satisfy her need for creative expres- sion and freedom. This is how Nanka Creative was born, the brand Mariana co-owns with her Swiss husband, Simon Roder. Nanka Creative honors tradition but also cares about the planet’s tomorrow: to make the beautiful hoodies and shirts that shoppers rave about, Mariana only works with ethically produced, quality merino fabric sourced from a small sustainable factory in Finland.
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