Jelena Djokovic wore Marijana Andrić’s sweater at Wimbledon.
Source: Rina
Marijana Andrić returned from Greece to Serbia eight years ago. She wanted to save the old Serbian craft of embroidery and knitting, by which our women were most recognizable, from disappearing. She succeeded in that. She gathered hard-working knitters from all parts of Serbia and created her Maridruna team, whose unique sweaters travel the world.
“I had the idea to bring that old craft, handwork back into fashion, with a modern design. I managed to find one woman at a time from each region, so we set off. Word got out about our work and effort, creations became more and more recognizable and we started exporting to all continents. This year, we are exporting the most to America, currently it is the strongest market, but the European market is no less represented,” says Marijana.
She adds that her team currently consists of 50 active women from all over Serbia, 15 of whom are from Priboj. They have their own workshop in that city, which they want to expand and include young people, in order to motivate them to learn the business, and therefore to expand production.
“We mainly import raw materials, and we are currently waiting for a contingent from France, the highest quality Mohair wool, but we also import from Italy because we try to put quality first. When you say sweaters, the first association you think of is Sirogojno and that they are heavy knitted vests, but we we went a step further and combined tradition and a modern look. These sweaters are a light variant, pastel colors that we are most recognizable by and are extremely sought after in the fashion industry,” this young entrepreneur points out.
A SERBIAN WOMAN RETURNED FROM GREECE AND STARTED AN INCREDIBLE BUSINESS: Jelena Djokovic also took her product to Wimbledon
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What makes these unique pieces special is the fact that there is a story behind each pocket square, more precisely when clients come, they are introduced to the person who embroidered that piece of clothing as well as how old it is, where it came from, so customers keep coming back to them because they know who is behind that product.
“Numerous women from Serbia and the world have brought our piece of clothing, such as Jelena Djokovic who wore a sweater at Wimbledon, the first lady of Serbia, many princesses around the world and fashion bloggers who wear our sweaters. “One hand-made sweater takes about seven days for the knitter to embroider, depending on the model,” says Marijana.
What the product will be depends a lot on market demand, and the women from this unique team try to meet everyone. “For example, we export heavy sweaters to the Canadian market, they like it to be actually like jackets, while in the American market they prefer to wear our light versions of light sweaters,” concludes Marijana.
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(WORLD/RINA)