Kathia Dobo – named after its founder – was envisioned by the Hungarian fashion designer Dobó Kata in 2009. The brand designs unique bridal, bridesmaid and casual dresses. We provide the opportunity to buy and rent collection pieces in limited numbers but our main profile is custom-made dresses. We are happy to fulfill individual requests with personalized style advice. The most important task of a designer is to highlight the personality and values of the bride, and to design and execute her dream dress. Our dresses are made using only high quality materials: special laces, beautiful muslins, satins, silks and soft tulles. All lace embellishments, stones and beading are hand appliqué. Our collections celebrate the femininity and sensuality of brides in love, which is echoing in the soft materials and detailed decorations.
I am a 29-year-old businesswoman, fashion designer and stylist by profession. I have always been interested in the world of fashion and have already been drawing evening dresses in the fourth grade of primary school. Not much later I made my first skirts. I learned to sew completely self-taught in which my immeasurable maximalism helped. I graduated from the István Tömörkény High School and Art Vocational High School in Szeged, majoring in crafts, textile art and handloom weaving. During high school I designed performance dresses for
ballroom dancers and also my first evening dress collection debuted – of which the centerpiece was my own high school prom dress.
In 2013 I designed my first wedding dress. Then I obtained a qualification in fashion and style design at the Budapest School of Fashion, where, among other things, I was able to perfectionate the technical execution of my pieces in a corset-making master class. By then, it became crystal clear to me that designing wedding and evening dresses were the main direction of my brand and soon it turned into a small (one person) business. I was the one who was responsible for the whole cycle from keeping contact with the customers, designing and executing the collection to running the fittings. This meant little to almost no social time, overnight work at some point and exhaustion but it still brought me an extreme amount of joy, satisfaction and motivation. In 2015 I opened my first Showroom in Budapest – which, as a resident of another city, meant commuting, and one year later I opened a Showroom in Szeged (my hometown) as well. This was the first great milestone, and soon – thanks to the love of my customers and the constantly growing number of orders– I hired the first Kathia Dobo team member. She was working on the marketing of the brand (managing social media platforms, building online presence) while I handled the rest. A little while later the team has expanded with two sewers. At first it was even more work for me as besides the extent amount of orders I had to hand over the know-how. This brand is my dream. Helping women – regardless of age – in feeling beautiful and self-confident is the key factor. Therefore, my new team members had to get to know me first, my methods and all the technical background work. From then on, our team has constantly grown. I had to learn a lot about leadership, division of labor and conflict handling.
In the meantime, the number of orders were solidly raising, especially the number of custom made orders. I have always insisted on meeting all the brides in person as the planning and designing process mainly lies on the relationship developed between the bride and the designer. It has always been very important for me to get to know all the customers so that I could adjust the dress to the individual – not only to the appearance but to the character as well. I look for the connection between the personality and the dress on which I build the whole design process.
The most important thing is harmony between the individual, the figure and shape, the used materials and the chosen style. Deep friendships are often forged during the creation of a dress as I get to know the person who entrusts me with dreaming the dress worn on the most important day of her life. This is the most essential and sweetest part of my job, therefore I could say that each of my pieces has its own soul as every single piece is hand-made with love.
During the numerous fittings over the years brides have always asked me if I could help them with choosing the perfect shoes or accessories to wear on their Big Day. I dreamt big again and launched Kathia Dobo’s little sister Delia by Kathia Dobo in 2019 with the aim of being able to support those who have already found their dresses but need help with accessories, or those in search of high quality clothes for weekdays or events. We endowed our dream Delia with a similar image but a unique appearance, which is closely related to the usual logo and elegance.
I reached out to Hungarian designers who are outstanding in their professional fields, who do their work with the same devotion that I demand from the Kathia Dobo brand and collected their pieces at my shop. It became a real jewel-box in the heart of my hometown. To bring shopping to the next level for our Delia customers I finished a color and style analysis master class and transformed Delia to the only color type based shop in town. This way, customers have the opportunity to come to me for color analysis and once they are aware of their perfect colors they only need to choose from the section dedicated to their specific color type. Color Analysis, also called “Skin Tone Color Matching” or “Color Seasons”, is the process of determining the colors that best suit an individual’s natural coloring. It’s incredible how fabulous can a person look with their best matching colors and no makeup on, and how ill or washed out they can look with a wrong color. A color looks amazing on a person if all of its characteristics are in harmony with their natural colors (hair, eyes and eyebrows, skin tone etc.). Color analysis is based on color theory according to which a color can be described by its settings on three dimensions: hue (warm or cool), value (light or dark) and chroma (muted or bright). Finding a person’s best color palette helps in using the right makeup colors with which they can emphasize their natural tones and beauty, wearing the right jewelry colors and building the perfect wardrobe.
Color and style analysis is strongly related to wedding dress design as there are numerous shades of white and with color analysis we can tell the best suiting shade to the bride. Also, the motivation behind wedding dress designing, color analysis and color type based shopping can be routed back to one strong urge: to help bring out the most beautiful, self-confident, modern goddess living in every woman.
CHALLENGES THE BUSINESS IS FACING
– Fashion is still one of the most labor and resource intensive industries, however, automation and use of technology have not yet been implemented. This makes the purchasing of materials very slow and expensive.
– Due to COVID-19 and the restrictions related to it a lot of weddings were postponed or cancelled and the number of orders were falling fast day by day in 2020. It was the hardest year so far in the life of the company. Our loss – just like many others’ in the wedding industry – has been significant. After the pandemic-imposed drought, we are seeing a flood of bookings, which means now we have to work twice as hard and that burst of demand is colliding with supply chain backlogs, labor shortages and inflation.
– We are also facing a very inconvenient phenomenon: copying. It is inevitable and very often happens in forums we also see, for example in wedding groups. Brides post pictures saved from our social media profiles and share them to ask if anyone could sew them cheaper. They do not realize that the quality, the know-how and the brand is what the price is made up of and they often receive a poor copy of our dresses from other sources.
– The global crisis is also having its effects on our business, the greatest problem we are currently facing is inflation, in particular the high delivery prices. It affects us on both sides. On one hand, we order our supply from foreign countries, and on the other hand we also provide delivery services.
OPPORTUNITIES IN THE BUSINESS
– We have the opportunity of launching and differentiating a couture line and a ready-to wear line more accessible to buyers with average incomes. It allows us to reach a larger audience of potential customers and our brands to make more sales. Delia offers a wide range of goods and services. There are marketed products, products from other designers and our own designer clothes. We define the color type of all of these products in order to help our customers in finding their best fitting color and style.
– Kathia Dobo and Delia by Kathia Dobo are interoperable businesses. Our Kathia Dobo brides are often directed to Delia to complete their bridal looks with shoes, jewelry or other accessories. They also come back after their weddings to Delia for services or products we offer there – same quality, more casual or ready-to-wear line and color and styling services. Very often our Delia customers, once they get engaged, immediately reach out to us for an appointment to one of the Kathia Dobo Showrooms. We offer both quality and fashion at the same time and have established a large database of loyal customers who come back to us.
– We have seasonal and permanent collaborations with other local businesses, e.g. photographers, influencers, wedding planners, models, which help us to reach national market on different levels depending on customer needs. This way we attract publicity
and build buzz around the brand, grow social media engagement and reach new potential customers through cross-promotions.
– Hungarian brides living abroad often reach out to us in search of the perfect wedding dress, and we have already had the opportunity to design wedding dresses overseas. Therefore, we are currently in search of international collaborations as we intend to expand globally through exporting or partnering with local companies.
ADVICE TO OTHERS ABOUT BUSINESS
Don’t be afraid to start your business on your own. This will allow you to develop (and later re-develop) the steps of your processes and build the foundation of your business. However, once your business starts to grow, don’t forget to delegate tasks in order for you to concentrate on more creative tasks and planning. On the other hand, try not to focus on too many things at the same time. Always be one step ahead of competitors and put your customers first. If you nurture customer relationships, you will know exactly what they expect from your company and how to fulfill their needs profitably.
