Radio România Internațional

Tag: apparel

  • Creating a new brand just by continuing your activity

    Creating a new brand just by continuing your activity

    Very few people know there are professional ski apparels created and manufactured in Romania. Furthermore, the origin of such a brand can be found in Toplita, Harghita County. It all started off from a small personal workshop.

    Dan Cotfas is the manager of the company that created the brand. He span the yearn of it all. Everything started from the workshop of his parents, former workers in the field of tailoring.

    “We started the activity in 1992, when my parents, who also worked in the field, retired, yet they felt they still needed to stay active and wanted to do something more. I am a mechanical engineer, a different field of work, and I thought I could offer them a chance to continue, finding them an activity so they could stay in shape, also enabling them to have the satisfaction of still being useful.

    So I opened a Limited Liability Company in 1992, me and my parents and my brother, in our grandparents’ countryside house that was available. My parents had two sewing machines because they worked in the field. My father had a “Craftsman’s Record Book “, he had a workshop during Ceausescu’s regime where he manufactured men’s clothing, a bespoke tailoring workshop. We also bought several outdated machines and we started our activity with production for the domestic market, men’s trousers and some women’s dresses. We were astonished to see those products sold very well, being extremely sought-after on the Romanian market at that time. “
    And, since at that time our guest today still worked in a different field and the products’ supply and dispatch were more and more difficult, an expansion of the activity was needed.

    “We hired four more people so we had, like, six or seven people all told, until 1995. In 1995 we had the opportunity to have a lohn production for a company in Italy. We searched for other premises, we developed the business and, in the beginning, we had our first 15-strong work team and we worked products for a well-known brand in Italy. Shortly afterwards we enhanced our production capacity and began manufacturing technical articles.

    So all along, it was a challenge for us to manufacture things we had not been used to manufacturing, also doing things we were not used to doing and things which for Romania, at that time, were unbeknownst. So we started manufacturing ski costumes with thermo-glued seams. We soon began to make mountain jackets, three-layer fabrics, also thermo-glued and we were among Romania’s first workshops to have manufactured goose-down jackets, completely manufactured in Romania. “

    There were a couple of years more for them to work according to the lohn system. Meanwhile they accumulated enough experience and their products were quite sought-after, so they opted for the enhancement of their production capacity, also personalizing it. Dan Cotfas once again.

    “We thought that, given they experience we’ve gathered, we should create our own brand as well. And we began with our own brand. We began with a shop of our own in Toplita, then we set up a shop in Targu Mures. We also developed the sector of selling of our own brand in Romania, there even was a time when we had 29, 30 partners we worked with and for whom we had our production, and our products sold in Romania, countrywide. “

    All things considered, eventually they were a small step away from getting international recognition.

    “In 2011-2012, we started our work for commissions we received from the ski monitors in Italy. After that, we were able to get commissions, to present collections in Austria as well as in Germany, in Finland, Great Britain, so much so that we also made ourselves visible on the ski slopes in Italy, Austria, Finland and Germany.

    The volume of our commissions started increasing by the year, given the products were very good, all accessories and fabrics were premium, so they were professional fabrics, fabrics manufactured in Japan, with technical characteristics of the highest level. As we speak, we have more than 90 clubs we work with. Annually, we work commissions we receive from these clubs: winter sports gear, outfit for mountain rescuers, apparel for mountain climbers and, latterly, we have also developed the fashion side sector, mainly the goose down outfit.”

    These are very useful pieces of info, for all of us, at wintertime, whether or not we are into practicing professional winter sports!

  • The Romanian traditional apparel and its history

    The Romanian traditional apparel and its history


    Piety overwhelms visitors as they enter the Namaiesti Monastery’s
    Ethnographic Museum. Namaiesti is a village in Arges county, located in central-southern
    Romania. And piety prevails there not because we’re speaking about a monastic museum but mainly because hundreds of days of work are behind each and every
    item on display. We get into the atmosphere of the fairy-tales, we’re being welcomed
    by wedding pageantries, and welcoming us are hundreds of dummies clad in traditional
    apparel from head to toe. Nun Lucia Nedelea is the Reverend Mother of Namaiesti
    monastery. She told us how the museum came into being.

    Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


    The idea kind of crossed my mind, to get a small
    museum started, it’s just that I didn’t have that much to fill it with. And then
    I went to my mom’s, since I was aware I hailed from family with quite a tradition
    behind it, and where the traditional costume held pride of place, I told mother
    what I wanted to do and then mom told me she would give me all her costumes
    that were left in the house, save for one, which she wanted to be dressed in,
    at her own funeral ceremony. I told her that’s what tradition was all about, it
    was the Romanian people’s identity card, that people had to be promoted, admired
    and carried forward. I told her that, first and foremost, for me, that costume
    had an artistic value, then it had a sentimental value, I went as far as telling
    her it even had a spiritual value. For me it was like an icon. I think I told
    mom many other things back then, so much so that she gave it to me, and then I
    asked her, when she and her elderly ladies gathered in their little church, I wanted
    her to ask them who would like to donate and I told her that those who donated,
    their names would be written in the monastery’s founders ledger and they would
    be mentioned during the sacred liturgy. And mom talked her grannies into doing
    that.


    The groom, the bride, their sisters, their brothers, the parents,
    the grandparents, the godparents, the priest and the deacons, all dressed up,
    are gathered in the room re-enacting the first wedding.

    Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:


    For the first wedding we’ve got the following (traditional
    costumes) 130, 150, 150, 130, 160, 150, 160 years old. And have headdresses, marame, in
    Romanian, a thin gauze countryside women cover their head with, when they have their
    traditional costume on, they’re even 200 and 150 years old. I have a couple of such
    headdresses manufactured here by several nuns, it’s a bunch of artists that we
    had here, they were masters of the needle who took the fame of all that abroad.
    You will also see in the church the holy shroud, an embroidery in gold and silver
    thread commissioned by Queen Marie and manufactured by the nuns here, in the monastery.
    Her Majesty ordered it, bought it and then donated it to the monastery, so that
    the nuns can also handicraft similar masterpieces


    And then when she found out she also had the priestess’s old apron,
    she staged a second weeding, that of the priest’s son, another impressive show
    of traditional costumes, with lavish embroidery, worked in sleave, everything
    of an indescribable beauty. Once donated, all those garment items were very
    well preserved, so that their initial brightness could be restored.

    Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:

    For one given item, we intervened 5, 6 times or so;
    we did the washing using rainwater, with home-made soap, it didn’t come out as
    we wanted to, right from the first try, then we tried that for the second and
    the third time around, until we got them the way we wanted to and brought them
    to the stage you’re now seeing they’re in.


    Also with her mother’s help, nun Lucia Nedelea put the peasant sandals on the dummies’ feet and then she began to write the illustrated verse
    story of the dummies’ weddings.


    As soon as we’ve staged the first wedding, mother
    reminisced about her childhood, when she had written a couple of lines and she
    sang me a little song, when I got home, telling me why didn’t I try to compose
    a few lines for the weddings that we’d done, a poem, no matter how short it was.
    And that’s how the idea crossed my mind and I began with the first wedding,
    then I staged the second one and after I’ve finished writing the poems, the verse
    presentation of the museum, I mean, I tried to write a first poem for Saint Basil.
    And I wrote a book in verse, that of the lives of the saints, and with God’s
    help and if am still healthy, I shall begin the second volume.


    We recall that the Romanian peasant embroidered blouse was awarded the gold medal at the World Exhibition held in Paris in 1909 and occasioned by the inauguration
    of the Eiffel Tower. And, since the peasant embroidered blouse was also among
    the exhibits, the nun continued to introduce to us the one-of-a-kind exhibits in
    the museum.

    Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea:

    This is the traditional embroidered blouse that won
    the gold medal back then, And here, I have created a little corner for my women
    predecessors. And here is the Reverend
    Mother who got me admitted to the monastery, 46 years ago. She is clad in a
    gown of genuine mohair, woven here, at the monastery, and which is more than a
    hundred years old. And what we have here, is a historical personality, that of nun
    Mina Hociota, who activated here during the inter-war period. She was an utterly special person; she literally broke the pattern of
    the ordinary woman. She was charismatic, she was brave, strong, intelligent and
    selfless. During World War One, she was on the frontline, in the trenches, she
    took out the wounded, she had them sent to hospital, to the infirmary, or she medicated
    them on the spot. Her medical knowledge was thorough, and later on the
    physicians in the area used to call on her because of such knowledge. For all
    her merits, she was awarded the Commemorative Cross of the 1916-1918 War, which
    was a Romanian commemorative medal instated by King Ferdinand on June 8, 1918,
    and awarded to all those who participated in World War One, she was raised to
    the rank of knight, she was a second-lieutenant and even had a short stint as commanding
    officer. For all that, she was awarded quite a few medals, distinctions and patents,
    of which the most important was the Star of Romania, which is the oldest national
    order that has so far been awarded to three women personalities alone.


    The museum in Namaiesti, Arges county, also displays the villagers’
    daily attire and women’s traditional costumes, according to rank and status,
    with the young women wearing lively-coloured headwear while the married ones
    wore flowered headdresses against a black background. As for Reverend Mother Lucia Nedelea,
    she is glad to spin the yarn of each and every costume, in verse. And when she
    does that, the world of the museum is brought back to life, again and again.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)

  • Discover Romania’s Hunedoara County

    Discover Romania’s Hunedoara County

    Discover Hunedoara! Millions of years of tales and legends.
    It is literally the urge of the local authorities for their prospective tourists.
    The Corvins’ Castle is one of south-eastern Europe’s most important Gothic art monuments.
    As for Bucura lake, it is arguably Romania’s largest glacier lake. Lying at altitude
    of more than 2,000 meters, the Bucura Lake is concealed between the Retezat
    massif ridges, in the Retezat National Park, a true realm of glacier lakes. These
    are just two of the tourist assets you shouldn’t miss if you happen to be in
    western Romania, in Hunedoara County. Our guide today is the head of the Monuments’
    management and tourism promotion Directorate, Radu Barb.

    Your journey may start in any part of the county you
    may be, yet, since the winter season is drawing near, we also have very important
    tourist resorts, such as Straja, where you can go skiing on some extraordinary
    slopes. The services are perfect to a fault. The tourist can find anything they
    want in Straja. Then I recommend Sarmizegetusa Regia. Here you can spend quite
    a few hours, with guides, along very important routes. It is Romania’s leading tourist asset, the Romanian
    people’s birthplace. The Costesti fortress is nearby. Then you can go to Orastie
    and in Hunedoara, for the famous Corvins’ Castle.


    Radu Barb also recommended that we have a stopover in the
    Gold museum in Brad. Founded in 1896, throughout the years Europe’s largest collection
    of native gold items has been growing in time, on the premises. The collection
    has more than 1,300 exhibits found in mines country and worldwide, most important
    of which are the native gold exhibits, originating in the Metaliferi Mountains.

    Radu Barb:


    The museum is one-of-a-kind in Europe.
    We have a special collection here. The museum is open to all visitors and is
    located in Brad municipal city. It can be rated as one of Europe’s most important
    museums of its kind. What we can see is an impressive collection of gold objects, mine
    flowers and tools miners used throughout the years. It is a collection
    illustrative for the county’s and Romania’s riches and it takes people around
    two hours to visit. From there, you can head for the area’s other points of interest,
    such as Tebea. Also, in Vata de Jos we have recently opened a new museum,
    themed the Apuseni Mountains’ heritage. It is an ethnographic exhibition where
    visitors can see for themselves what a traditional house looked like, from
    Zarand Country. We have authentic traditional apparel, household items, and all
    these can be found close to Brad. It is very important, that, when we visit the
    Hunedoara County, we outline the route, according to preferences.


    Built in the 14th century, the Hunyads’ Castle in
    Hunedoara is one of the most beautiful and best-preserved medieval
    constructions of that kind. It has 42 rooms, two open space balconies and two
    attics. The access to the castle is made via a wooden bridge supported by four sturdy
    stone pillars.

    The head of the Monuments’ management and tourism
    promotion Directorate, Radu Barb:


    Before entering the
    castle, we should visit the museum of the castle. There are a couple of interesting
    points for which, if you don’t make your research before you start the journey,
    they can be missed out on, and that would be a pity. There are several small museums,
    there, located on the right-hand side of the castle, with very interesting
    exhibits. It is one of Romania’s most superb castles, it is very carefully
    preserved and very well managed. It has Iancu de Hunedoara at the centre. You
    can spend about four hours there, with guides to accompany you.


    Hunedoara was and still remains a place of the old-time
    traditions. In any corner of the county you may be, you ‘re sure to meet
    craftsmen and you can also taste the local dishes, prepared using old-time
    recipes.


    Radu Barb:

    We have several memorial houses. For instance,
    the Drăgan Muntean House, the house of a very popular traditional music
    vocalist. Traditions and customs are being preserved. There is also a festival
    themed Woodsmen pies, where a couple of thousand people gather each year, in July
    or August. Here, visitors can see several traditional peasant houses. In the Dragan Muntean
    House you can find traditional apparel, blowing instruments such as the flutes,
    as well as other traditional objects. Nearby the memorial house, there is a
    village that has a marble road. It is named Alun, and the scenery there is breath-taking.
    It is a typical destination for trekking aficionados. There are also
    gastronomical points, but for all that info, all you need to do is download Discover
    Hunedoara, from Google Play or Apple Store. The app
    enables us to see all the tourist assets around us, if we happen to be around.
    So we offer a virtual guide, available to everybody.


    Apart from the usual dishes, made of sorts of cheese and
    meat, in Hunedoara, you can also taste the ham salami, the pressed cheese with
    truffles or the fruit stew.


    Radu Barb:


    We also have an association of traditional
    and ecological food producers. In the village of Hărțăgani, for instance, there
    is a woman preparing a sort of pie known as varzare in Romanian,
    following a recipe from the days of yore. We promoted it on the county’s tourism
    promotion page, labelled Enjoy Hunedoara!, and the impact was very special. And here
    we can also mention the famous virsli of Brad. These are very special little
    sausages. We can also mention the rolled minced meat and cabbage leaves package.
    There is a wide variety of produce.


    So
    here we are, with a tourist destination for all ages and for all seasons.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)