Rubrica - Momentos Fashion
Sabatha
Interview with Carmen Lara X How was the Sabatha born? I lived in Spain for 16 years and decided to return to Mozambique when an opportunity arose through a Spanish company. The company had the intention of sending material here in containers, and they offered to send my things too. I gave them everything, but unfortunately, they did not comply with the arrangement and I ended up without my belongings. I began to make capulana clothes out of necessity, so I could go to work. Everyone complimented my clothes. Later, I decided to make some outfits for friends. I started getting quite a few requests and decided to create my own brand. And Sabatha was born, quite spontaneously, out of necessity. What does Sabatha mean? “Sabatha is my grandfather’s and mother’s name, Armenia Sabatha. My parents are divorced, and the father figure I always had at my side was my grandfather, so I decided to pay him homage. Sabatha means
Saturday in his family’s language who are originally from Goa, India. How did your passion for fashion come about? Who is your source of inspiration? When I was 4 years old, two of my neighbours were LAM’s airhostesses. I loved to see them dressed up for work. I would run to the porch to watch them waiting for the bus. I believe that it was then that my passion for fashion began. My sources of inspiration are my mother, Audrey Hepburn, and Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. How many people work for Sabatha and what are their functions? Four people are currently working at Sabatha, me, Mrs Fernanda, who helps me with washing and ironing. We also have Mr. Tiago, the couturier who helps me put the pieces together, and then we have Jonas, my partner. He helps me with all the photography, video editing and technical parts.
83 - Maio/May 2018• REVISTA XONGUILA © ™ Ed. 2
What are the biggest challenges for your brand in our country? And what was the most difficult situation you’ve been through? I think the biggest challenge is promoting the work. Although I work a lot with photography and the media in general, I believe that I am not yet fully reaching the audience that I would like. I see that my product is something that people like, even some of my competitors try to replicate it. This is one of the negative things about having too much exposure, however, according to the Chinese, if someone copies you it’s because you’re doing a good job. The most difficult situation for me was to decide to stay in the fashion world, because it is a market that is already very saturated. Initially people were asking me why I would do capulana clothes, if there were already many people doing it. It took me a while to make the decision, it was a difficult but rather important moment of reflection.