Our story

 

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

 

 

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 the churches in Central Europe tend to make the headlines with their resignations. Especially since I keep thinking that they are interested faith becomes less 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 this to my little nieces and neighbors for Christmas: A white T-shirt with a cross printed on the neck area. It was particularly important to me to see the reactions of these and the families, and to fi nd out what impression such a product leaves on people. I was very pleased with the result! My 10 year old boy 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 are fixed. So nothing stands in the way of having the first shirts produced. Sustainability is very important to us! That is why we committed ourselves to organic cotton from the start. After all, as a Christian brand, we must not cause our production to harm people or the environment. Under the following LINK you'll find more about what it means if no organic cotton is used. In addition to our goal of maintaining sustainability, it is important to us to use the proceeds to help people in need.

First of all, we drew attention to us via "Instagram". When we published our brand logo in March 2020, a lot of people came up to us and asked themselves what that was? "Antiochia with a cross instead of the t", asked you yourself. "Do the accessories make? Clothes? ". Yes, we were even asked whether we are 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..