’΄Ergon Mykonos is a luxury brand featuring elegant, modern, handmade artifacts of high quality and genuine craftsmanship, inspired by the Greek heritage. Situated in the very heart of Mykonos island, ’΄ergon Mykonos is housed in a sophisticated concept store where inspiration and design transform Greek culture into imaginative and innovative artworks.

Marietta Karpathiou, the founder, has a passion for Ancient Greek Art and a knowledge of Design from her studies at the Rome School of Art and Design. ’΄Ergon Mykonos’ creative team, with Yorgos Pavlakis as Art Director and Margarita Dimitriadi as Graphic Designer, intrigue traditional icons and Greek modernized symbols in high quality materials such as leather, gold and Greek natural fabrics, combined in the most creative ways, and they present them in a simple and stylish atmosphere, aligned with the fineness of the local surroundings.

Greek fabrics and materials combined in an original and innovative wayTradition and style blend with modern techniques to define the product line of ’΄Ergon Mykonos, which is presented through a range of modern compositions of everyday life; jewelry, clothing, accessories even homeware. The store also features exclusively a specially designed line of clothing and jewels, made of top quality material, reflecting the direct influence by Ancient Greece.

Their newest experience is to allow the client to tailor and co create a Greek holiday memory inside the shop’s design laboratory where a custom espadrille, leather sandals, hats, bags or t-shirts can be artfully made on the spot! On entering the store, a warm and comfort design lab invites you to push your creativity’s boundaries, dive into a designer’s mind and become thecreator of your personal design.

Free spirit, wild imagination and personal touch are all you need to create your own “Ergon”; only at ’΄Ergon Mykonos. The place of expression where everything is possible!

Does it all sound Greek to you? Join us and find out…

All creations are available in ’΄Ergon Mykonos concept store at Ano Matoyannia in Mykonos island, online at ergonmykonos.com, and in selected shopping points in Greece and abroad.

Like so many good ideas, Kimalé came about as a happy accident for its creator, Irène Mamfredos, the child of a French mother and Greek father.

It all started on one of her trips back from Paris when she brought back some brightly colored African wax prints and made simple outfits for her two children. The outfits were such a hit with her friends that she made a few more, and a thought took hold: what if this could work as a fashion concept?

The result was Kimalé, an eye-catching brand which Irène launched along with her friend and pattern maker Aliki Demi, applying all she’d learnt about the world of fashion over the years. “My relationship with fashion began by chance,” she says. The name is an amalgamation of her family’s names: husband Kimon, Irène and her children Margot and Léon.

While in Paris, she was approached on the street by a man who liked her style and asked her to interview for a position at the Balenciaga fashion house. She passed and became assistant director of the Balenciaga studio in the years when Nicholas Ghesquiere (current artistic director at Louis Vuitton) was at the helm. Armed with her experience, she returned to Greece to set up a new brand, LAK by Lakis Gavalas, before working as head of production atZeus&Δione. “In Paris where I grew up, African prints are very much a part of life. I’ve always been inspired by them,” Irène says. On visits to the markets in Paris, it was the stalls with African prints, masks and beads which would catch her eye.

“Parisian style is very simple. This was the antithesis to that style, a way tolight up the grey of Paris.” she says. In 2013, when the brand officially launched, the focus moved solely to the women’s line. A whole range of fashion styles is catered for clean-cut jackets, bold jumpsuits, high-waisted shorts, stylishly tapered trousers, skirts, peplum tops and bikinis.

“I find that each collection spontaneously splits itself into three categories:city, beachwear and fashion,” she says.

Kimalé operates under a slow fashion concept. “It’s like fast food and slow food. Fast fashion is bad for the planet and unethically produced. At Kimalé, it might take 20 hours to make one top; it’s a thousand times slower than mass production. It’s not haute couture but each piece is truly made with love and attention,” she adds. The ethical concept extends to sourcing the materials. The wax prints she uses are authentic Dutch prints. “Wax prints were brought to Africa by Dutch colonialists, and adopted into African culture. I source my fabrics from the best Dutch company. I hand-pick them myself from their warehouse in Paris, going on instinct, which is how I think our customers choose what to buy too.” She gets her hand-woven and hand-dyed bogolan fabrics via a French company “Les Piroguiers” which is active in Togo and Burkina Faso. Profits from sales go to helping schools with materials and funds and supporting a number of local artisans.

Each piece is made by hand from start to finish. On the more exclusive pieces, even the fish-shaped buttons are Irène’s own design. She loves these fish so much that she shrugs a shoulder out of her top to reveal the same fish as a tattoo. Her next obsession is a giraffe motif which she wants to incorporate into next year’s collection. “We’re always evolving. I know I have something very special, and the next goal is to sell via boutiques outside Greece. “The unusual fashion brand’s reputation has spread largely by word of mouth and its growing fan base of happy customers.”

“Just over half of our customers are foreigners. I have people who are repeat customers; they might buy something one year and, the next year, get the same thing but in a different print. It helps that our stockists themselves love the product so much.” Kimalé’s workshop is currently preparing for its 2017 season. The collection will feature a wider range of outfits and embroideryon the clothes. Irène says it’s their most complete collection to date. “We pay attention to every single detail. We love what we do and when someone buys one of our pieces, we want our customers to feel that they have something special in their hands.”

Last summer, Alexandra Theohari started her fashion company, Klothó,creating a timeless collection of clothing and accessories that combines traditions from Crete with contemporary fashion trends.

Originally from the city of Thessaloniki, Theohari was captivated by hergrandmother’s weaving workshop in Crete, where she watched her weave everything—from dowry items to wedding gowns.

Between designing her collection and all that comes with running a new business, Theohari has not had much time to learn the art of weaving herself. However, having such an admiration for weaving and a desire to keep it alive, she says she has been trying to learn the craft when she visits different workshops around Crete.

This admiration, she states, is what ultimately led her to found Klothó. The company’s name derives from ancient Greek Mythology; Clotho, theyoungest of the Three Fates (the Moirai or Moerae), “spun the thread of human life”, and symbolizes the present.

Klothó products are made in Greece, using 100% white cotton – which represents the Greek light – using the same traditional Cretan weaving techniques that Theohari’s grandmother used. It’s not just the designs that are hand-woven; the garments themselves are hand-woven as well. All the fabrics are cut from the loom, and sewn together to create the pieces.

In addition to the simple, white forms in her collection, Theohari also aimed to revive textile patterns that carry the simplicity of classic Greek style.

“I wanted to create unique pieces. I like very minimal lines,” she says. “The simplicity of Greece is my inspiration.”

The collection consists of resort-wear, designed with both Greek and international women in mind. Theohari describes “a modern, sophisticated woman that loves quality and art, and loves art in her clothing,” when she envisions the type of woman wearing her pieces.

Defying the risks of opening a business in the midst of Greece’s financial crisis, Theohari decided to revive her beloved, declining craft, and give a new twist to modern fashion. “It was a dream I’ve had for years, but the weaving was what inspired me. I thought it was worth taking the risk,” she says. “It was very risky in the middle of a crisis. I didn’t know if feedback would be positive, but so far it has been.”

The unique collection is available upon request, in a limited number of copies. as the company makes everything by hand and from scratch, using a thousand-year-old technique.