It's completely natural for many Bulgarian companies to look for growth outside the country, where the market is bigger and brings more opportunities. Yet expansion carries risk - with a big market comes a lot of competition. Still, there are successful stories in which Bulgarian businesses not only survive, but grow at breakneck speed. Such is the case with the fashion brand DEMOBAZA, a well-known name in Hollywood, sought after by clients such as Janet Jackson and Gerard Butler, but also often part of productions by giants such as Netflix, HBO and Warner Brothers.
Demo and Tono
DEMOBAZA appeared on the market in 2007, but the idea of a common brand was born in the heads of Dimitar Sulev and Teodora Alexandrova (Demo and Tono) two years earlier, when they met and their creativity collided. Both have experience in the industry - Demo had worked in his family's shoe and clothing manufacturing business, while Tono had been experimenting with fabrics and cuts, art and photography for years.
"Our creativity is the product of a collision between our styles," the two say about the beginning, while working on the brand's autumn-winter 2024 collection. "Demo, with its more raw and reconstructed style, meets the highly futuristic and minimalist vision of Tono. Each collection tells a story and adds new points of view in a creative journey that to this day follows its own path and experiments in different fields of visual art," the two designers add.
Clothes from the future
DEMOBAZA's clothes usually look like costumes from a science fiction adaptation, which is probably why the designers of the movie "Dune" chose them for the filming of the series. "The style can generally be described as a luxury underground reconstructed futuristic uniform," says Demo. Therefore, the customers of the brand are mostly people from the creative industry, looking for non-standard looks. "These are individuals who are provocative mostly to themselves - artists, musicians, art lovers, people who want their inner world to have a proper material expression," adds the designer.
This has been the brand's goal since the beginning, and it is present in every collection so far.
"DEMOBAZA goes through continuous changes and transformations, but at the same time remains true to its main vision and direction - strong, bright, detailed, unexpected, awakening and experimental with the construction, a new architecture of the garment with the idea that clothes dress not only the body, but also the soul," Tono explains about the products.
The brand releases 4 collections per year - summer and winter in men's and women's lines, and each season includes between 200-400 models. Prices start at around 300-400 dollars, with products with more details and complex construction reaching up to 1000 dollars.
One way ticket to Hollywood
DEMOBAZA's style implies that the brand is sold in markets with lots of creative customers and productions. That is why, from the very beginning, Demo and Tono are oriented outward. "Even with our first completed collection in time for the World Fashion Weeks Summer 2012, in 2011 we entered a selection of very good and famous boutiques and online retailers such as LuisaViaRoma, which helped the brand gain some popularity in Europe and America. After that, for many years we presented our collections in Paris every season," the two designers, who share an equal percentage in DEMOBAZA, recounted regarding their departure from Bulgaria.
Today, DEMOBAZA's main markets are the USA and Europe, with a small percentage of customers from other places around the globe. The majority of orders are placed in the brand's online store, while inquiries can be made for wholesale and special order customers. "Our customers are all kinds of individuals, but mostly people who wear us in their daily life and this is their style of dressing, as well as, of course, productions and business customers, but they are a much smaller part of our end customers," explain the two designers.
Dressing Beyoncé
In Bulgaria, the brand is not known to many, but in Hollywood, DEMOBAZA is among the sought-after brands by artists and production houses. "Our clothes have been worn by many famous people such as Justin Bieber, Pink, Milla Jovovich, Grimes, Maluma and others, as well as corporate clients in the industry including Netflix, HBO Max, Warner Brothers, Marvel, Legendary and many of the films produced by them. Of course, one of the most popular stars who has worn our clothes is Beyonce," says Demo.
During her tour in 2023, Beyoncé posted a photo of each of her stage outfits, and several times she shared her clothes were made by the Bulgarian brand, which then gained even more popularity. "The project with her made us a very small part of the biggest production in history to date, alongside the biggest and most famous brands in the world. For us, this is a big recognition, and she is the only star for whom we have made special clothes to order," says Tono, attributing this to the fact that the brand's products are interesting and original enough that little adaptations of designs have only been necessary up to now.
For Beyoncé, DEMOBAZA developed totally new products. "From sketching to execution, our team members flew for urgent samples all over the world for the best selection of fabrics, deadlines were, as always, extremely tight. The whole team worked around the clock for several weeks, because the clothes for the dancers were also made to measure, and Beyoncé herself was made available to us by being filmed with a 3D camera. We had to 3D print her in life size to make the most accurate clothes for her and a bunch of other tasks. After all, we are one of the very few designers with two outfits that ended up reaching the stage," say the designers about working with the singer.
Made in Bulgaria
Although serving clients primarily in the US, to this day, the DEMOBAZA team is entirely based in Bulgaria. "At the moment, we are about 30 people without the partners and agencies, with me and Tono as designers and owners, and then the core of our team headed by our manager Milena Stoynova, chief technologist Rostislav Maksimov and manager of the online store Aleksandra Alexandrova," Demo explains about the business, adding that the company partners up with agents in its core markets.
Manufacturing is also based here. "With the exception of our sunglasses, which we produce in Italy, every product is made in Bulgaria by large, medium and small factories specializing in different branches of the textile industry from knitwear to denim and shoes," the two explain regarding the division of production. In Sofia, the brand has a showroom in the Bel Vali complex, where archive and current collections are stored.
Over the past five years, DEMOBAZA has grown smoothly, and it is curious that during the pandemic, sales did not fall - on the contrary. "Usually global crises lead to an upswing for us, but we attribute it to the fact that we are still a small company with a new and innovative product," the two owners believe. In the pre-pandemic 2019, Demobaza reported revenues of 3.5 million levs and a profit of 257 thousand levs, and when all productions are postponed in 2020, revenues still grow, and the profit is double - sales reach 3.1 million levs and the profit 539 thousand levs.
For 2023, the two expect that the financial results coincide with the average annual growth, "which we have maintained since the creation of DEMOBAZA. We do not have ambitions and set goals, but rather naturally go our way," the two say.
Back to the Future
"The future of DEMOBAZA is in the hands of God, the rest is creative potential and a job well done," says Demo, who, alongside his business partner Tono, is currently working on the upcoming winter collection for 2024. "We have a lot of pictures coming up for it and next summer, we are working in the initial stages on several interesting music and film projects, which are still confidential at the moment," he adds about the brand's short-term plans.
In reality, the two have no long-term plans, but so far that is how the brand has grown - with no big goals for profit and growth. "We cannot predict anything in today's volatile times, we can only guarantee increasingly interesting and challenging collections and very exciting creative projects," concludes Tono.
It's completely natural for many Bulgarian companies to look for growth outside the country, where the market is bigger and brings more opportunities. Yet expansion carries risk - with a big market comes a lot of competition. Still, there are successful stories in which Bulgarian businesses not only survive, but grow at breakneck speed. Such is the case with the fashion brand DEMOBAZA, a well-known name in Hollywood, sought after by clients such as Janet Jackson and Gerard Butler, but also often part of productions by giants such as Netflix, HBO and Warner Brothers.
