After committing to this project, the first task was to think of a name for our online store, so that I could effectively run a small GoFundMe campaign. I wanted Stela to feel like the huge part of this that she would become, so I told her it was her job to think of a name. I encouraged her to be creative and bring some ideas back and we would talk through them together. After a couple days of thinking, here’s what she came back with:
A Alfaiataria dos Vestidos de Manjacaze de Stela e Sarah
The Tailor Shop of Dresses of Manjacaze by Stela and Sarah
….catchy, right? Wrong.
I told her it needed to be way shorter, and easily understood in English. I told her I like the idea of being descriptive, but that we needed to minus some descriptive words and add some creativity. Then, she asked for help because she doesn’t know a lot of words in English. She also said that since language is a part of any culture, she thought we should have at least some Portuguese or Xangana in the name, so that it would come across as authentic. I agreed.
I threw out some ideas: Sewn by Stela, Stella Belleza, Dresses by Stela, etc. She stopped me and said, “if my name is going to be in there, yours must be too. This isn’t just me, and we can’t do this without you”. I was flattered, and willing to compromise: S and S. I showed her the “&” symbol for “and” and she thought it was pretty. So, we had that to start. She liked the idea of adding Mozambique or Moz to the name, and I liked the idea of beauty or belleza because that’s pretty much the goal of dress shopping, right?
We thought of “Mozambique Chique”, “Mozambeauty”, “Mozambelleza”, “Mozamchique”, “Vestidos de Moz”, and many more. We were throwing out some clever but also some really ridiculous ideas…laughing at the bad ones and writing down the good ones.
Finally we decided on S&S Mozambelleza: “Belleza” is a Portuguese word but is well-known to many English speakers, it’s Mozambique specific, and it includes the initials of both creators.
S&S Mozambelleza. I like it. We like it.
After a short and successfully generous GoFundMe campaign (THANK YOU TO ALL THE DONORS!), Stela and I were off the purchase materials needed to make our first round of dresses. We decided to meet at the bus stop at 8am on a Tuesday morning, soon after we reached our GoFundMe goal, to head to the “big city” of Xai Xai (the provincial capital of Gaza) to purchase capulanas, lining, buttons, zippers, and thread at wholesale price.
There are two reliable ways to travel out of Manjacaze: a chapa (a small van that should hold 12 people comfortably but usually fits at least 25), or a big bus that runs on a schedule, leaving Manjacaze at 8am, noon and 4:30pm daily. It makes trips solely between Manjacaze and Xai Xai. It offers more space for the ride, it does not wait to fill up before it leaves, it uses a nicely paved road instead of a bumpy dirt road, and it is 10 mets cheaper than a chapa. Really it’s a no brainer: take the bus every time. So, because the bus doesn’t wait, I told Stela she needs to be on time: 7:45am, in case it arrives early.
8am rolls around and there is no Stela to be seen. I message her and ask where she is and she replies “estou aqui perto” (I’m right here close by). But, in Moz language that could mean 30 seconds away or 30 minutes away. Then at 8:05 the bus pulls up as I’m messaging Stela another time…I really don’t want to miss this bus and have to take a chapa. So, I get the cobrador’s (person that collects the money on the bus) attention and tell her my friend is really close, can she please wait. She asks me how close and then demands to call my friend to see exactly where she is. About three minutes later, I see Stela in the distance sprinting up a hill with her youngest son Nosled on her back, sweating profusely. THERE SHE IS! The cobrador smiles, Stela boards the bus, panting, and off we go.
Within 30 seconds of sitting down and situating Nosled comfortably on her lap, she begins to rifle through her purse and pulls out some crinkled up papers. “I did some drawings of dresses we could make, and I want to know what you think.” She had dozens. Her excitement to show me the dresses and start our “little” (not at all little, as I’ve come to learn) project was obvious.
Before arriving in Xai Xai,we make a game plan: we will choose 4 different patterns and purchase 6 capulanas of each pattern. That way we can make 6 short dresses, or 4 long ones out of each pattern. It will definitely be enough to get us started. We start at her favorite wholesale capulana shop, where capulanas are hanging all across the ceiling and the full length of all four walls. We point to ones we like, discuss for a little, and move on. After about 30 minutes, no decisions were made and we leave empty handed.
We wander around the section of central market that has small stand after small stand of capulanas of all styles and colors. As Stela is browsing capulanas, she holds up my arm alongside hers to see how the colors will look on black and white skin. It was a subtle but no less adorable gesture. She says that orange “não fica bem” (doesn’t stay well) on white people skin and that “cores vivas” (lively colors) work well for both. I completely agree with her. We decide on two capulanas with very traditional African designs and two capulanas that have more of a universal print. One is navy, one is bright royal blue, one is pink and red, and the fourth is teal and maroon. We have a good range of colors and styles, and are satisfied with our choices. Next we head to a different shop to purchase the not-so-fun stuff: lining, zippers and thread. That takes pretty much no time at all, but the shop owners are more than pleased with the quantity we purchase. When we leave they are encouraging us to come back soon.
So, three hours after arriving in Xai Xai to purchase so much fabric, we head back to Manjacaze with a backpack full of colors and designs.
The next phase of the project is to decide the styles of dresses we want to make. We decide that since we have four capulana designs, we should make four different styles of dresses—we will photograph each dress in a specific print, but offer all dresses in all prints on our site. I tell her that the next thing we need to do is design the dresses. The idea is that we separately design (for me it’s find on Pinterest, for her it’s design from scratch) four different styles, then we can come back together and collaborate until we agree on the final four. This will ensure that both American and African tastes are included in the final product.
A week later, we bring both of our ideas back and discuss them.
Idea One
Stela likes it, except for the buttons down the front. She says it reminds her of something you should wear while baking a cake LOL. She suggests putting the zipper in the back and adding a solid piece of fabric around the waist to serve as a belt. I love the idea and we agree and move on.
Idea Two
Stela shows me a dress she already has made as one of her ideas. It is really cute, and aligns nicely with a style that I chose as well. She has in mind the capulana she wants to use, and how to make it “less boring”. She wants to use the Teal capulana and the contrasting Maroon part as a belt and to embellish the bottom and back—“simples em frente, interestante atraz” (simple in the front, interesting in the back”. I encouraged her creativity, assured her the Americans would love this style—because it’s different but not TOO different—and we moved on. She seemed proud.
Idea Three
Stela shows me another dress that she made as a final project at seamstress school. I immediately fell in love it with. It has a deep embellished front and an open back, with a long skirt that splits up the middle. I imagine it being worn at a special occasion in the States, one that people would say, “that’s an amazing dress, where did you get it?”. However, when she actually made the dress in the fabric we decided upon, it didn’t translate very well. It was very busy—too much embellishment, to the point of looking like a costume. This was one of the first times I had had to give negative feedback to Stela about her work, and I was very nervous to do so. I said, “Can I say something? I don’t want to offend you but I have an opinion.” And she responded, “yes, tell me, whatever it is we will make it better.”
So, I told her a few things about the dress I wanted to change: the neckline in the font needs to be deeper, the neckline embellishments needed to be eliminated and the slit is too high in the front (like, really, somebody’s crotch would hang out). She took the feedback like a true professional: These are good ideas. I will make the changes and show you. At our next meeting, changes had been made and it was a much better, well-finished version of the original (and it’s fit it’s model perfectly—likely because the model was Stela). We were both really pleased with the outcome of this dress, but even so Stela had some ideas on how to make the next one even better. I always appreciated her forward-thinking and thirst for excellence.
Idea 4:
I chose this dress because it demonstrates that the cut will look good in print, it had a small sleeve, and the style of simple and classic. Stela agreed and we didn’t discuss much, except to choose the capulana print. It almost seemed too easy to decide—and that’s because it was. What Stela produced looked nothing like the picture (flashbacks to online dating, anyone?). It didn’t have a v-neck, it didn’t have sleeves, and it did have an a-line skirt (he didn’t have a rugged beard, he didn’t have all the muscles, and he did have bad breath). It was a pretty dress, but not at all what we talked about. Also, in my opinion, it was too simple and did not have enough of a wow factor to be sold online for 85USD.
So we started talking. I said, “Stela this is well-made but not what we talked about”. She said “I know, and it’s because the sleeves didn’t look good in this type of fabric so I cut them off”. I told her it was a fine look but we needed to spice it up and make it special. She cut a v-neck and suggested a slit. We already had a dress with a slit so I suggested we do something interesting with the back. We agreed to cut geometric holes to go with the triangle in the front. It worked—gave the dress an extra “umph” to make it unique but not too funky.
And with that, our four styles were created, fitted to the models [read: the most beautiful models in Manjacaze and maybe even the world], and photographed. The photography session was likely my favorite part: Stela and Adozinda had a blast. They exuded happiness and confidence (as you can see in the photos below). Tess is a wonderful photographer and her fancy camera sure as heck helped.
After some editing, a lot of learning-as-we-go on the Etsy platform, our first four listings were published and we were up and running. I worked individually on most of the technical stuff because Etsy is in English and Stela isn’t too savvy with computers.
I showed Stela the store, and we worked together to develop what we call “the story of Stela”. She can’t believe her dresses are on the internet. To date (after two months), we’ve sold 8 dresses and have had three very happy customers (the other five dresses are still being processed). Upon showing her a picture of the first happy customer in her dress, she lit up like a Christmas tree and said,
“Que lindo! Todas as Americanas vão querer a parecer assim!”
“How cute! All the Americans are going to want to look like that!”
I told her good job. She told me she’s glad we are a team.
A very functional, collaborative team is exactly what we’ve grown to be.
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