SPOT LIGHT
Aroz presents its new production: SPOTLIGHT, a series of episodes that will highlight each step of Aroz's journey.
17 Apr,2023
Spotlight #1
The beginning by Laura Sole.
Let's start at the beginning. Ten years ago, I founded Zora by L, an e-commerce platform that offered a selection of costume jewelry from various suppliers in France, Italy, and Spain. I never could have imagined that I would create my own jewelry brand, with my own designs, or that I would work hand in hand with my sister Paola to establish our own business. It's incredible to see the journey we have taken in the past 10 years!
At that time, finding rare gems was what I enjoyed the most. It gave me the urge to create an e-commerce platform with multiple brands. I chose my finds, posted them on Instagram, and invited people to visit our online shop. It was as easy as that. Quickly, orders started pouring in, and our family living room transformed into a storage space. We also started organizing photoshoots at home. That's when Paola, who was training to be a speech therapist, started helping me after work by wrapping up orders and taking pictures of new products.
We continued like this for two years, organizing pop-up events and meeting our clients, who were often friends or friends of friends. Then, one day, we had enough treasures to leave the family living room (our parents were waiting for this day impatiently) and find our own workspace. Zora by L established itself in the heart of the Châtelain neighborhood, in the backyard of a house in Brussels.
In 2017, we noticed more and more concepts similar to ours emerging, and we started to see the same selection of products everywhere. At the same time, we realized that most of our suppliers, who loudly proclaimed their European origin, were actually hiding the truth: the vast majority of the jewelry was made in Asia and only assembled in Europe.
This reality did not align with our values. We needed more transparency, and we had to find a solution. We could not continue like this. We decided to search for workshops in Europe and arranged a meeting for our first visit to a family workshop in Porto.
From then on, everything happened very quickly. We fell in love with the workshop in Porto, and the feeling was mutual. We immediately felt that we shared the same values, and our collaboration began to take shape. Finally, we were able to create our own jewelry, and most importantly, we were able to oversee the fabrication process with complete transparency, as we wanted. Paola and I started drawing our first sketches, inspired by the jewelry that had always surrounded us, the pieces we found in our grandmother's drawers.
But we soon realized that this transparency and our shared values with the workshop came at a price. A price that would impact our jewelry and require us to justify it to our clients, raising a lot of questions.
Find out more about Spotlight in our next episodes.