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Interview with co-founder Víctor Serna
Loreak Mendian (literally “flores en el monte”) was created in 1995 in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, when a group of young people began selling T-shirts and sweatshirts to their friends. Their surfer-style streetwear soon became a whole range of men’s, women’s and children’s wear inspired by Bauhaus and with a keen interest in handcrafted detail.
The daisy that appeared on the label’s first T-shirts became so popular, it was made the Loreak Mendian corporate image in 1998. The current logo is by Jon Izeta, popularly known as “the cheese man”, whose design is a tribute to early 20th century avant-garde movements in Germany and to the domino.
The Loreak Mendian concept is expressed mainly through fashion, but also through other disciplines. The brand supports local championships in traditional Basque sports, organises the Donosita Surfilm Festival and contributes to photography magazines. It has also produced the uniforms for staff at the Kursaal, the congress centre in San Sebastian, designed by architect Rafael Moneo.
Since it opened its first store in the historical centre of San Sebastian, the label has proved unstoppable. It now has eight shops of its own (two apiece in San Sebastian, Bilbao and Melbourne, one in Madrid and another in Barcelona) and is available from a further 150 points of sale. At the end of 2005, corporate sales had risen 34%.
