The story of ENDAYZ store BERLIN

We often go to Berlin, love this city and the culture around it. For half a year now our brand is represented in Berlin by Endayz store. This store was opened by two friends - Yasha and Valera. During one of his stays Vasiliy VR talked to them about their background and what it is like to just open a store in Germany.

— Where are you from? Tell a little about yourself. How long have you been living in Berlin?

Yasha: I was born in Donetsk in Ukraine, but was taken to Israel, where I grew up, at the age of 2. I’ve been living in Berlin for 6 years. Initially came here to hang out and look how things are going here, but decided to stay. I don’t think I’ll stay here forever, because it’s too cold here and I miss Israel so bad.

Valera: I was born in Saint-Petersburg. At the age of 10 I moved to Israel, like Yasha. It turned out that all my life I constantly moved, so I had the opportunity to live in such countries as Mexico, Canada, Ukraine, Moldova and Germany. I moved to Berlin for the first time in 2007 and then lived there for 3 years. After that was another move and finally I came back only a year and a half ago.

— It seems not that simple to open a store in Germany. Did you have a similar experience? Have you ever made clothes or started your own business before?

Yes, it’s not easy to open and do business in Berlin, especially if you’re not local. There is a lot of bureaucracy and the language barrier interferes a lot. But we have local friends who are always happy to help us. And if you do everything according to the rules then in the end you’ll make it. Both of us used to take part in different projects both in clothing and retail as well as many other ones. This helps us a lot, we constantly use some past skills or ideas in our project.

Basically Endayz is not only about clothes, we both are very much into tattooing and music, we love different creative things, design and modern art. When we first started creating Endayz, we decided to try to combine our interests and experience in one project, choosing clothing as one of the main thing, as we both had to do with it and we have rather similar views on the todays streetwear. We still have a rather small team, more precisely, there are just two of us. That’s why everything happens gradually and not as quickly as we would like to. The first step was the opening of the store itself, in summer we launched our brand (working hard on it now) and constantly trying to produce something new, and in January we officially opened the second part of our store - Endayz Lab. It will be a small creative workspace with a tattoo studio. Also we do Endayz Sessions: video podcasts with different musicians playing their sets in our store.

— Your store is located in a very cool area. Did you want to open it right here from the beginning?

Friedrichshain is our favorite district in Berlin, there are a lot of street art, clubs, bars and worldwide famous galleries, several skateparks. This district never sleeps, there are many restaurants and shops that are open 24/7. At the same time, the atmosphere is quite relaxed here and there are a lot of interesting and talented people moved here from absolutely different parts of the world. We also live here. So we decided at once where to open a store.

— Have you ever been to Russia? What do you think about it?

Yasha: I’ve been to Russia several times long ago, so it’s difficult for me to say something about the country itself. Regarding clothing and culture of course I really like what is happening there now. Also I often meet very interesting and pleasant people from Russia, now I meet them also at our store and some of them become my good friends.

Valera: The last time I lived in Russia was in 2010-2015. I think that there are a lot of talented young people in Russia and a great potential, but it was still quite difficult for me to live there, partly because of the local mentality, but mainly because of the political situation in Russia. Most of all I miss my friends who live there.

— Do you know who in the main are your customers?

Of course our target audience is young creative people who can evaluate the uniqueness of our clothes, many buyers are musicians or designers (like many Berlin dwellers). Also we got more and more clients from other cities and countries who found our store in the Internet. They’ve added it to their list of places to visit in Berlin and it’s very pleasant to hear and motivates us a lot.

— Do you keep an eye on what is going on on local market?

We don’t pay much attention to local market because the main part of it here is mass market brands which is hard to compete with, we just bring and do what we like.

— There is a lot of interest in street fashion in Russia at the moment. A lot of young brands. What is the situation in Germany with it?

Germany is interested in streetwear fashion too. There are a lot of related events but mostly big and self-made brands are involved, young brands appear not so often. First of all, because things are not that simple in garment industry speaking of small releases. Secondly, there’s strong competition with big mass market brands which can set a retail price lower than it would cost for a young independent brand to produce.

We try to keep an eye on Russian streetwear and new brands that appear every day. First of all we like brands which we’re working with: Volchok, CxP, Wolee and Codered. Also we like such brands as Sputnik 1985, 616, e404 and т3cm and hope to work with them someday.

— Name your favorite places in Berlin.

Above all it’s creative area RAW and streetart gallery/club/summer garden Urban Spree. Also Treptower Park, Teufelsberg and of course the place where we spend all the time - our store Endayz Berlin.