Screen Shot: Henotique

City Based: Bucharest, Romania

What inspired the brand name?

The brand’s name comes from the greek word henotikon and it means an act of union of different beliefs. Having this affinity for multiple domains like architecture, conceptual design, fashion and film we never decide upon one of them, so we see our brand like something that encapsulates the blend between all of these practices of various schools of thought. So the word HENOTIQUE stands for reminding us that instead of choosing one thing, it’s ok to work all of our different interests from a similar angle and to place ourselves in these interstitial spaces, embedding everything we know into something that is universal, like a piece of clothing.

At what moment did you realize you wanted to start a brand?

We are still students, in our final year at University of Architecture in Ion Mincu, so our focus was never only on fashion. We didn't even think about creating a start-up or something of our own back then. Back then, how long ago that sounds, but really the brand has surfaced about a year ago, sometime during autumn. We've had a passion for fashion since high-school, but our streetwear gene has developed during college, but to be honest our first love will always remain sneakers. So, this hunger for design has kept growing and growing inside us, being refined by working on multiple architecture projects during college, till we have finally realized that all our knowledge that we've accumulated in Architecture School we can turn it into something useful, something real, we can merge our education with our passion. That's how Hénotique was born.

What helps you get over creative blocks?

Looking at our creative process, we avoid working until it’s perfect, cause it’s never perfect, we avoid overthinking about something being wrong or right, but we also put some pressure on ourselves, setting a deadline. Usually we have an idea and we try it even if we know how to do it or not. So as long as we have an upper vision, it doesn’t matter so much the execution. As long as it’s about doing it, the creative blocks are no longer an obstacle cause you don’t have the time to think about that, you’re focused only on your idea. Bearing in mind that there is no finish line, we always push ourselves and move on to the next idea, questioning every time and adopting different perspectives. One of the lessons we learned in school was to step back from time to time and to take a good look at our process to find the right balance of work habits for our creative to thrive.