Milles: a new concept for the modern woman

Today I want to introduce Milles: a clothing brand founded by Milles sisters. Fanny and Carla Milles are from Venezuela and have got Catalan roots.

Milles pretends to be a friend of the woman who want to be different from the others and always look good. Milles style is based on a woman with personality, style and who likes captivate. Their biggest inspiration is the dynamic women: decisive, effective and fast.

Carla Milles, the production engineer and responsible for the commercial and artistic direction of Milles, talked about the beginning, the spring-summer collection and the general concept of the brand.

How did start the idea of creating a clothing brand?

The idea born at the end of 2009 when I was finishing my studies and wanted to start a business by myself. My sister is a fashion designer so I told the idea: create a new fashion brand. She liked it, so she began designing and together we started to planning all about the brand: the principal objective and where we would like to go. All that process was when we were in Venezuela.

Later, in 2010, we decided to move to Barcelona, Spain. Over one year we looked for suppliers, we made different trips all around Europe to see fashion shows, the quality of the products, materials and of course of the European trends. While I was doing a master for my career we decided to create “Milles”. We went to Madrid and we show our products there. Finally, in 2012 the brand was consolidated as such.

What is about the new collection and what kind of clothes are you presenting?

At the beginning, Milles started with three kind of lines: Convertible dresses, Pop Soda (shirts with hearts and adjustable skirts) and Glam, this one is the line for cocktails and sexy dresses.

For this new collection we are presenting designs with a cute trend, more female and elegant. It´s a mix between elegance and female. More pink.

We are not going to leave the glam line. We want to make it better. The sexy dresses it will be change in sexy and elegance. We are trying to mix both concepts. This season it will coming laser permeated details, like for example little hearts handmade or prints and painting style also by handmade.

Moreover we have a new convertible dress with sleeves. The new dress will have a wrap skirt. About the colours, the black is always present. Also we can see the pale pink, a very nice aqua green, navy blue, red coral, crude and royal blue. Those are the colors we use in this new season.

How Milles has evolved since its inception to the present?

In Venezuela we had other business study and when we arrived in Barcelona we find different thoughts. We have been gradually adapting through the attitudes of the same audience, the same client. We conducted focus groups, testing different models and looking for gaining acceptance. About the style, we offer some details to the garments that we know are silhouettes in which the woman looks like very feminine, favors the figure and apart from that we add little details like what I mentioned before about the draft, handmade designs. Those details make our clothes different than others.

What are the sources of inspiration for Milles?

In the creative process there are different steps. On one side is the study of trends, in that case you is to go to fairs held one year before the collection. There you can see the colors it will come the next season. On the other hand, we have all about modern life, celebrities and everything you see in magazines. We make a mixt of all about that and we combine it with our own style. For inspiration we take into account all these elements and then capture in our brand.

What would you say to someone who don´t know about your brand?

We are constantly in a study to improve our product silhouettes. We also visited fairs and above all look much that is on the street just to not do it and copy it. We're very different in that respect to many other brands. We went outside to see what people use, not to repeat it, just to try to design different things that people have. Always keeping the line of good taste, that fits you well and flattering silhouette. We never make a garment that has a crazy and fashion design but not physically flattering.

Finally, Carla Milles said that they are thinking about to create men designs. They are evaluating if they have demand for men who want Milles style. They are in that process. Maybe soon we can have a surprise!