Every issue, GRAZIA USA highlights Game Changers, who inspire, educate, and celebrate individuality, beauty, and style. Meet Xenia Adonts, the German designer, content creator and CEO of Attire The Studio who originally set out for a very different career path.
While studying in school I had this obsession with working in finance. I wanted to become an investment banker and live in Frankfurt, which is the biggest finance city in Germany, and then work on Wall Street. I never aimed to work in fashion. It happened very organically and was more like a very lucky accident. When I finished university, I was exhausted because I was in a dual study and got a bachelor’s degree in finance while doing a traineeship. It was very, very time consuming because I was working at a finance company for three months, and then I was studying for three months, so I never had a vacation. After graduation I wanted to take a gap year to prepare to get my master’s degree in the States.
I was already uploading random photos on Instagram of myself but during my gap year, I started to enjoy posting more photos and gained followers. And then everything changed when I got my first offers for $20 here and $50 there. Next, I got a job offer to post eight photos for around 400 Euros, which was my monthly salary at one of my jobs at the time. It was mind-blowing, and I thought, “Okay, I need to get more out of this.” I started uploading more frequently and put more effort into my posts and by 2017 I switched strategically. My boyfriend quit his job to support me full time. We started attending fashion weeks. I started rebranding and pivoting into high-fashion and luxury. Seven years later, here we are.
I love working in social media, but I started feeling like something was missing about three years ago. I was thinking about launching my own brand for a while, and then in the beginning of 2019, I watched The True Cost. Everybody should watch it. It’s a documentary about the fashion industry and it was really eye opening for me. After I watched it, I cried. I was so shocked. I started to do research because I wanted to support more ethical brands and realized that there are very few brands that are actually sustainable and the ones that are weren’t really my style. That’s where I saw a gap in the market. I wanted to create the perfect sustainable, transparent brand with fair pricing and that’s how Attire was born.
I didn’t want to have any plastic in any part of the clothing or the packaging, so Attire is 100% polyester free. We really try to go above and beyond to keep that high standard. We were the first to create shoulder pads that were not polyester based; our zippers are Tencel based; and our fabrics are sustainable and made from certified natural fibers. I think our items are priced fairly, but of course they’re expensive and I want people to understand why. There’s a part in the documentary that says if an item is cheap, somebody along the production line didn’t get paid. There are so many steps along the supply chain, and we disclose all the pricing for fabric, for the assembly, for the trims. That’s how you see that people are getting paid along the production line. I think if people were more aware of the ugly side of fashion, they would be much more conscientious about consuming.
Read GRAZIA USA’s Fall issue featuring cover star Nicola Peltz Beckham:
Now that I’ve been on my entrepreneurial journey, it’s really nerve-racking. There’s not a single day when I don’t deal with an issue. But I’m so in love with it. I love creating something that will make the world a better place. I think the challenge I’m dealing with right now is managing all of it. I have Attire, which is my number one priority, and then I have Instagram and TikTok. It’s three full-time jobs, basically. I hope there’s not another form of social media coming soon! But overall, I really, really enjoy it. I think the reason I pivoted into all these areas so organically is because I was listening to what makes me happy and what I enjoy doing and not forcing myself into something. I could have stuck with my finance path that I envisioned very clearly, but I was listening to what I enjoyed doing at the time.
Years later, I still love social media. But I started for different reasons than a lot of people start nowadays. I get a lot of messages from people who ask, “I want to become an influencer and make a living with it. What tips can you give?” And it’s so hard for me to say, because I started for the love of sharing.
— As told to Colleen Kratofil
GRAZIA USA’s 2022 Fall issue will be available for purchase on newsstands nationwide in October. Email [email protected] to subscribe.
