Ana Collado Cano

I am an accessories designer specialized in bags and leather goods. I have a brand called SOCĀIRE and I work in my studio from Seville, Spain, very close to Ubrique, the town where the big luxury and fashion brands are manufactured.

I am currently working on the launch of my brand and I am also shaping a design studio, consulting, product development and training, to serve brands that need support in the design, development and manufacture of accessories, bags, and leather goods.

My training in fashion design and my experience at the Ubrique Leather Technology Center, where I was able to work for multiple luxury brands, have enabled me to develop my own business and have provided me with very specific skills and the know-how of traditional techniques and materials of leather goods, to be approach projects in an innovative way with added value.

Having my brand allows me to express myself as a creator and designer, and my work in the design, consulting and development studio allows me to offer my knowledge and put it at the service of other brands to carry out the challenges they propose to us.

I oversee the designs, patterning, and prototyping. To manufacture I have the collaboration of several artisan workshops with which we carry out the productions.

My business objectives are:

My goals are to create a business model adapted to my professional, specific, and specialized profile, and to achieve, in addition to a business model, a life project in which to bring ideas, stories and products to life through design, crafts and fashion. All this supported by values related to the conservation of handicrafts, environmental and social sustainability, the value of what is handmade, quality and nobility of materials.

In short, a business that offers products and services that emanate from the past to project a better future.

My learnings from the Crafting Business Programme:

Over the last few months, I have learned how to create a company and address all the important aspects that are required to achieve a viable business model, with differential value. To project, analyse and evaluate ideas.

The business idea with which I entered is very different from the one I have now. I have taken a more interesting, simpler, and more comprehensive approach. I have simplified but at the same time I have created a project that can have a longer journey

My 5 top tips that I have learnt on this journey:

1. My company should be like I am.
2. Create my own artisan look
3. Make the crisis an opportunity for transformation.
4. Share, collaborate, create alliances, associate.
5. Balancing the artisan-entrepreneur profiles.