Dear friends of VONTUM,
As we have announced before, the VONTUM-Team took time to think how to proceed in the future. The decision is made: we have bad and good news for you! It always has been our mission to be honest in everything we do. So to speak transparency (in production and communication) is our core value. That’s what VONTUM stands for. This way we’ve managed to build a strong community which helped us to spread the story of our VONTUM project without a lot of marketing effort. Therefore, would like to share our thoughts on the future of VONTUM…
During the last months we had the opportunity to review what has happened so far and how our sustainable fashion project has developed. Remember, our goal was to bring our clothing brand VONTUM on the market, financially independent and with our own resources. The core of the VONTUM project was to establish a different thinking in style and sustainable production. Until now, VONTUM stands for quality designer clothing – from fabric, design to packaging, 100% produced in Germany. Without any compromise!
This appeared more difficult than expected. First of all, it is very hard to rely only on locally produced resources (especially when it comes to fabric). In the last two years we have tried to establish lean and flexible production structures which operated on a just-in-time basis without creating a large inventory. For the past 2 years, we were working on our idea to implement a bottom-up approach in the fashion industry. It was our dream to create a fashion business which did not depend on the long production cycles which normally dominate the fashion and lifestyle market. However, we did not manage to establish long-term partnerships with our German fabric suppliers. Frankly, none of the remaining fabric suppliers saw the potential what locally produced fashion could mean to their business. (while simultaneously complaining about how hard it is to sell high quality fabrics made in Germany when facing a dominant competition from the Far East). Although many producer were interested at first none of them was willing to share the risk of investing in a small national label in the end.
Nevertheless, we managed to put up two basic jersey collections in a timeless style. There were lots of ups and downs. We are grateful for a lot of nice experiences (especially with our customers). Of course we faced many problems too but we’ve managed to move on each time. As every entrepreneur can testify our learning curve was pretty steep – we gained some many industry insights (always challenging the status quo), learned how to start up a company from scratch, understood why sustainability does matter, and managed to build up en extensive network throughout the German start-up scene. This way we learned a thousand time more (and faster) than in any classroom or office building!
E-Commerce, Web 2.0, crowd sourcing and social networks are buzz-words many people use without really knowing what is behind it. With VONTUM we had the chance to look behind that curtain. We can openly admit that the both of us are complete addicts by now when it comes to online communication. It was so much fun to learn about the possibilities of blogging, facebooking and twittering. As a matter of fact, we can now consider ourselves as real experts in this field 
We also used this knowledge to promote VONTUM virally – actually without spending any marketing money (which we did not have).
Marisa Maters, Tobias Burkhardt, Marlies Kempf - the VONTUM Team
However, money has become an issue. Bootstrapping is fine, but it is a long and exhausting path. Our initial plan was to find an investor after the proof of concept. Unfortunately, this was not that easy. Both the financial crisis and the fierce competition in the fashion market destroyed our vision to find someone to invest in this market. The combination of bad luck and our inexperience has resulted in our failure to find a serious investor who would support our growth phase. And since our bootstrap strategy was designed for a limited period of time for that, we’re now at the point where we’ve decided to shut down this project. That’s the bad news!
For every bad, there’s a good. VONTUM enters a new phase from today on. All in all, the last two years were an extraordinary experience which neither of us would want to miss! We’ve met wonderful people, learned so many new things. As we said in the beginning, we started a business in an industry we had no clue about. However, people all over Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy are now wearing VONTUM products (something we’ve made, something we’ve designed!) Customer feedback tells us that our aim for the perfect fit and the highest quality was the right thing to do. This makes us really proud! And this is the reason we would like to keep this project going although both of us are already seeking for new ventures. Therefore, we started the VONTUM Blog for Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability and of course Style and Fashion – simply a place where Tobias and Marisa will report about their future endeavors. Please feel invited to join us!
All there is left to say is “Thank You”! to our faithful customers, followers @ Twitter and our fans on FB. Hasta la victoria siempre!
Cheers,
VON Tobias Und Marisa
I started at the Men Opening of Premium. It was smaller (less exhibitors) and less progressive than I expected although I like the idea of putting the men fashion area in the spotlights. The next day I visited the first edition of the in fashion berlin, a new trade show with partly green fashion exhibitors (Green Glamour) and a mix of others. The overall concept was not really clear to me. Especially when I visited the lavera Showfloor at Kosmos where lots of fur was shown in the show of Bonnie by Bogner. Both last locations were great but far off the beaten track.
After that the GREEN showroom in the Adlon Hotel was on the program. A stylish presentation of high fashion, basics und accessories fashion labels. For the first time some casual- and street wear labels were presented as well. I finished the evening with the “I want Mohr” show of Munich Designer Patrick Mohr at Brandenburger Tor. An interesting androgynous collection, presented mainly in the colours grey, black and beige. Eye catching were the latex socks and the black bar eyebrows.
