Our story

 

My name is Nikola and together with my sister Sonja, we founded >ANTIOCHIA< on the Feast of the Resurrection in 2020.

 

 

In November 2019 I traveled to Bangkok with a friend. Our flight with Qatar Airways went from Zurich via Abu Dhabi to Bangkok. At the beginning of the flight, a Muslim prayer rang out in Arabic throughout the aircraft and on the respective on-board screens. My first thought was "oh, what's going on now?" But after a short thought, the thought occurred to me: "Hmm, basically a nice act." Because honestly, don't we Christians do that too? Just very quietly and secretly, each one for himself. In most cases even without gestures, just in thought. But why is that so? Why don't we dare to practice our faith openly?

 

 

Let's be honest that an airline like Lufthansa or Swiss would say "Our Father ..." as a collective before departure is pretty utopian, especially since churches in Central Europe tend to make headlines because of people leaving the church. I also keep thinking that interest in faith is declining over time. Now 12 hours of flight time is quite a long time to think deeply about this topic. What can I do? What could my contribution be?

 

 

But how do you stop something that has taken on such a dynamic when the message of Christianity is supposed to convey peace and love? We are all looking for our calling and since my strength is not in words and text, I find myself in fashion. After all, fashion is very inspiring. Such a "statement shirt" can help strangers feel connected to the same point of view.

 

 

It was important to me from the start that the design was minimalist but still meaningful. A simple, narrow cross in the neck area of the shirt is just the thing. In order to find out whether my idea would get through to others, I implemented my idea and designed the first T-shirts. I first gave these to my young nieces and nephews for Christmas: white T-shirts with a cross printed at the back of the neck. It was particularly important to me to see how the children and their families reacted and to find out what impression such a product leaves on people. I was very pleased with the result! My 10-year-old nephew wore it every day and didn’t want to take it off. Driven by these and other positive reactions, the question arose: "Start a fashion brand - yes or no?" At this point my idea began to grow.

 

 

 

 

A Christian fashion brand also needs a suitable name. The brand name was literally put in my cradle. Antiochia is not only the city where the roots of our family lie, but also the origin of the Christian faith. It was in Antiochia that the disciples were first called >Christians< (Acts 11:26). Here they founded the first church and from there they went out into the world to found other churches. Because of these specifics, I decided to use the brand name, which is not so easy to pronounce. As easy as it was to determine the brand name, it was just as easy to create the logo. After all, the goal was to keep it minimalistic. Therefore, the "T" in the name was replaced with a cross. It corresponds exactly to my ideas: meaningful and minimalistic.

 

 

The logo and design have been finalised. So nothing stands in the way of producing our first shirts. As a Christian brand, we believe that our responsibility extends not only to the message on our clothing, but also to the people involved in making it and to the environment around us.

We focus on organic cotton for most of our products, alongside other materials suited to each design. You can find the exact material composition of each product on its respective page.

Our mission is to make faith visible and put love into action. Through selected initiatives and sales campaigns, we support those facing hardship.

We first drew attention to ourselves on "Instagram". When we published our brand logo in March 2020, many people approached us and wondered what it was all about. “Antiochia with a cross instead of the ‘t’,” they said. “Do they make accessories? Clothing?” We were even asked whether we were a church. We planned the official presentation of our project on a special day: Easter Sunday, the great feast of Christianity - the day of the resurrection.