BOUJO HAKE was bought to life by a female duo with a combined plethora of skills, knowledge and expertise.
Kathrin began her journey undertaking a three-year intensive apprenticeship in dressmaking and tailoring where she was presented with a prestigious Industrial Award for outstanding achievement. This gave her access to an elite fashion school in Germany, SchloB Eller. Hard graft and vision eventually led to Head Designer positions at BOSS and JOOP!, where she stayed for a combined twenty years. Consultancy roles for smaller outfits followed. Years before sustainability was a word with any meaning (though the meaning remains vague), Kathrin was acutely aware of the profound impact she, as part of the fashion industry, had on the environment and was often a lone voice proffering options. Over her thirty years in the industry, she has seen the seismic shift in mentalities, as well as the very real continuing challenges. Today, Kathrin works as an Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins and volunteers at her local club as a qualified England Athletics Coach, to support young athletes in their endeavours.
After a French degree at Warwick University, Nadia worked at The Prince’s Trust, guiding fledgling businesses in their marketing programme, at a time before social media. The mentoring extended to young offenders at Feltham prison where she would have conversations about the possibilities that lay outside of prison. Amnesty International’s Prisoners of Conscience programme followed, with roles in direct marketing and copywriting, her highlight being an interview with John Hurt about his film Shooting Dogs. After a combined ten years in the charity sector, Nadia undertook a post-graduate diploma in Periodical Journalism, allowing her to realise her dream to become a theatre critic. This eventually led to a business development role at the Almeida Theatre. A slight deviation in Nadia’s career was her one-year diploma in biochemistry to keep another dream alive, that of becoming a doctor (the heartbeat is faint, but the dream lives on).
This was when she met Kathrin.
Nadia and Kathrin’s beginnings were vastly different – Kathrin grew up in a mining village in Essen, and Nadia in urban Willesden Green – but their sense of style, sensibility and ethics united. The seeds for the business began with the desire to make the ultimate wireless bra – a bra that eschewed the overly constructed, overtly sexy designs so widespread, a bra that remained both effortlessly sexy, comfortable and supportive, projecting the freedom of the 1970s. The no bra, bra. Soon this extended to all key staples – the everyday pieces they had both worn and continued to seek over the years.
So they collated their wildly diverse and myriad skill sets to create the understated and minimal luxury basics brand: BOUJO HAKE.
