Save our dream, Sigma Fashion – an independent fashion workshop and store

Our story begins nearly 5 years ago as of this post, when we started Sigma Fashion, when the 3 friends got together to put something they've been planning for a while into practice. We started off small and dreamt big, custom dresses and small lot production. We produced our models, and offered them up to different stores across the country – while this sounds grand, we were not a success right off the bat, and suffered some setbacks when we got stiffed on payments, but we dealt with it and carried on. We always took care of our employees, in a business that abuses seamstress and tailors, treats them poorly, payed minimum wage, and doesn't care about their well being. And thus, we were able to secure a loyal workforce, a quirky one due to the different personalities but that's ok – everyone is different.

Our designs are simple and elegant in a market saturated with kitch and glitz made in China, and we grew slowly and steady and built up a good customer base who knew that quality, timeless and that easily accesorized is better than cheap and disposable. We kept things fresh with seasonal designs every few month and different patterns to never be monotonous.

We toiled for 2 years under the thumb of capricious customers who we were forced to heed for every weird whim that they had and had to alter our patterns to suit every silly impression that they had but such is life if they're your main client that keeps you going. But we always saved up to open our store and be independent of outside forces, and in the middle of our 3th year we finally did so and cut ties with those bad actors and started growing.

We were happy and finally found our stride and saw steady growth that encouraged innovation during our 4th year, and sizable sales increases and brought in other Romanian designers into the fold to keep it Made in Romania and fill out gaps in our line up. Thing were good till our 5th year when this current unpleasantness hit and the Pandemic started.

We were hit hard and tried to keep the workshop and our employees but we were forced to let a part of them go as we couldn't afford to keep them all in late July. We were forced to sell off the equipment to make enough money to keep us going for the next few months because sales weren't keeping up with expenditure, the shopping center said won't offer any rent cuts or discounts and we are in dire straights. We need help to keep us going for the next half year or more till they start vaccinating people and decreasing the risk so people can have confidence enough to buy again – we're not greedy, we're not taking money for ourselves and we are asking just for enough money to keep the rent, wages, taxes and accounting done so that we can keep it open and that is around 2100 euros / 10300 lei per month. Even something as small as 1 euro makes a dent in the whole part if you help out.

Please help us and keep the dream alive, if we have money left over at the end of this or this ends quicker than we plan we'll donate it to a charity – either a homeless rights charity, a hospital building charity or we'll split it for both.