LOCAL HERO
Klaartje Busselot is a Belgian illustrator & designer.
Her bold, colorful style clearly reflects her passion for shapes and colors. That's where the match with Four Roses was obvious very quickly. She created 2 illustrations for us that perfectly represent what we stand for as a Belgian brand.
In addition to creating the illustrations, she also took the time to pen down this interview with Lien De Vroe.
Lifelong learning.
My story begins 7 years ago with the acquisition of Four Roses. The collection changed course, became a lot trendier and has been focusing on feminine, spicy with a tough edge for several seasons now. It is now completely how we envisioned it and we are reaching the target group we design our collection for. It has taken more effort than we originally thought but now it runs very spontaneously, we have learned a lot along the way. And we know we're still going to learn a lot. In short, entrepreneurship is a lifelong learning process.
Bright green on a down day
Since the opening of our own stores, I am regularly in the store myself, and there I hear and see a tremendous amount. It may be a bit cliché to say but our customers give me the most energy and they also provide me with tons of inspiration. Apart from the stores, I can also lose myself in films or series with a certain style and carry that through into the collection. Once the inspiration is there, we puzzle out color themes that are attuned to types, the season, colorblocking, ton sur ton... Working with color offers a lot of possibilities and is really the essence of our collections at Four Roses .
I am also convinced that color has an impact on your mood. You won't find much black in my closet, but a lot of green and lilac. Green really is my favorite color. I always find it flattering. In winter kakhi and in summer I like to wear bright green when I'm having a down day. Lilac has made plenty of appearances in the collections now and seems to be here to stay. I myself love the combination of lilac with bright red.
Stay close to yourself
The first collections I made I wanted to make everyone happy. Similarly, I wanted to convince the woman who likes to go out to dinner in a fitted dress, swarovski pearls and killer heels. But now I know that's not our client. And that's not a bad thing at all. Instead, the woman who loves Belgian, color, volume and a print who will totally find her thing in our collection. By putting our end customer first and staying close to ourselves we have built a fan base after a few seasons and that is really great to see!
