Today we’d like to introduce you to Satin, Anahit, and Marsel Grigoryan.
Satin, Anahit, and Marsel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Satin: Fine art and design have been my passion for as long as I can remember, I began drawing when I was a toddler. As I grew older, I started designing and sewing clothes for dolls. By the time I got to high school, I knew the fashion industry was where I belonged. My passion and interest in fashion and fine art grew, and I started planning my career in the creative industry. It was when I started my journey at Art Center College of Design that I realized this was my life, that my whole life, I had been working towards something greater than I could ever imagine. My experience at Art Center was surreal, experimental, emotional, challenging, and rewarding. While I was pursuing my degree in Fine Arts, my focus was on more than just art. I wanted to learn everything I possibly could. My vision was versatile, I was interested in fashion, graphic design, photography, philosophy, law, entrepreneurship and so much more. And that’s when my siblings and I decided that we wanted to have our brand. A couture lifestyle brand, fusing fashion, fine art, and everything fine living. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an artist and I knew that I wanted to work with my siblings. Family is something so sacred and I cherish the bond we have as a team. We founded GRIGORYAN just a few months after graduation, the brand is everything we ever wanted. It’s a reflection of the three of us, our family, our heritage, and our Armenian roots. It’s not just a brand it’s a way of life.
Anahit: I was a curious kid who was fascinated by the idea of solving problems, helping people, and overall experimenting. To this day all of those stand steady, I wanted to pursue medicine since I can remember. Growing up with Satin and watching her figure drawing sparked the desire to specialize in plastic surgery. Then everything changed three years into biochemistry, I transferred to Woodbury University and embarked on a sustainability research-based degree in Interdisciplinary with a concentration on marketing, business, entrepreneurship, and communications. After developing the research, I was intrigued by the niche world I had discovered within the luxury sector of the fashion industry. After trying to solve the fast-fashion problem, helping people consume consciously, and experimenting with the idea of sustainability and sustainable fashion. I called this niche “dark luxury” where the consumer is conscious of the craftsmanship and quality, therefore, invests in the piece. This also covers the connoisseurs, who establish brand loyalty and consume non flashy items, and that’s when GRIGORYAN was officially manifested through my countless hours of research and sleepless nights. As my thesis seemed like a manuscript, it soon developed into something much greater than the collected data. I realized the power and energy I had installed in my research, as I completed my last remaining pages before my presentation. And just like that three months later GRIGORYAN was launched.
Marsel: I was introduced to video games, technology, and then later on the internet at a very young age. I remember being four years old on a flight to the United States and exploring and configuring the TVs inside the plane and successfully get it to play a movie. As I grew, my passion and love for technology grew as well. I started exploring different software and programs, my interest in research grew which led me to learn more and more about the world of technology. I’ve always been highly immersed in technology, psychology, and social media. My approach to mindset has always been research-centric which has led to everything else in my life. As a child, our imagination and curiosity run wild, so naturally, we are constantly exploring and discovering new things that I have to highly credit my dad for. I’ve always looked up to my older sisters because they always inspire me to thrive. They have heavily contributed to my taste in music and fashion as we share similar interests, and you can notice that in the brand.
After high school, I got into banking and then real estate as we started GRIGORYAN. Developing the skill sets needed in these two client-driven industries helped further my skills in social media and customer relations which I now invest in GRIGORYAN. I have years of customer service and networking experience. I’ve grown up in the social media age. As we grow as a company, I develop different skill sets to become deeper rooted in the company and by maintaining authenticity and staying relevant to our clients.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s been wicked, a smooth road would be an understatement for us. It’s been full of adventure, challenges, mistakes, failures, and more. We have taken the good and the bad because they have taught us how to improve as a company and individuals. Anyone who says they haven’t struggled in a new venture is either struggling or is in denial. We look at it as an obstacle, a new challenge that will either have us develop a new skill set or grow as leaders. We’ve been growing spiritually, emotionally, and physically, as a brand, a team, and as individuals.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Grigoryan – what should we know?
Our company Grigoryan is a versatile, dark, couture lifestyle brand. We concentrate on peculiar nature, superb craftsmanship, and legacy by fusing fine art, fashion, and fine living. We create limited and gender-free pieces by reinventing the concept of necessities in a broad spectrum of categories. Our creative pulse is driven by our surroundings, nature, travels, art, and music. We create and bring our designs to life by using elements from our surroundings and family roots. The exquisite hand stitching we use at Grigoryan incorporates the human touch. We concentrate on the quality and create poetry by perfecting the imperfection of each article. We use the finest custom leather skins and the darkest color palettes to handcraft each piece from start to finish in Los Angeles.
We are very proud to be a couture lifestyle brand which means quality and experience. Couture means it is specifically tailored to that individual, therefore every piece is crafted to be bespoke. It’s all about forming relationships and brand loyalty with our clients, giving them that experience that they can’t get anywhere else. The experience of customization, individuality, and longevity is what we had been looking for in other brands before starting Grigoryan. Luxury to us is culture, simplicity, aesthetic, quality, and most importantly how the objects we surround ourselves with make us feel. By investing in a product, we allow it to become one with us, travel amongst us, and share our atmosphere. What we care most about is creating something that will last a lifetime and get passed down to generations as a collectible heirloom since it will be completely custom. We want to combine our cultural elements with modern and dark essence to create the ultimate brand around a lifestyle.
We work with our three main symbols The Grigoryan, The Clockwork, and The Cross which are showcased on various articles of clothing, accessories, jewelry, and fine art. This is a representation of an enigmatic being, an individual that is faceless, nameless, and sexless. An entity, which represents everything and nothing, a woman, a man, a child, an animal, and a force of life. It is anything and everything one might imagine, powered by fire, water, and earth. Our signature CLOCKWORK monogram, which you will find on many of our creations, was inspired by the cycle of life. We at Grigoryan design and create with futuristic and past ideologies preserving the old techniques. The idea came to us in a form that we are steadily rooted but we are moving forward and evolving from generation to generation. And lastly, the Grigoryan Cross which is a representation of the four corners of the world. The unity of the elements of water, fire, air, and earth. It was inspired by the Armenian heritage and resembled the Armenian Khachkar* which plays an important role in the Grigoryan brand.
Khachkar, also known as an Armenian cross-stone is a carved, memorial stele bearing a cross, and often with additional motifs such as rosettes, interlaces, and botanical motifs. Khachkars are characteristics of medieval Christian Armenian art. Since we are a lifestyle brand, we always incorporate our lifestyle and maintain the heritage of our family: the Grigoryan family has been crafting leather since the late 1930s in Yerevan, Armenia. We are the fourth generation of leather crafters.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We owe it to our parents, they are our biggest fans! They have supported us from the beginning through everything we’ve been through as a brand, a team, and as individuals. We are always captivated by the individuals who invest in our brand, and we appreciate them as our clients, friends, and mentors who have added so much value to the label. Since they all play such a big role in our success, we welcome them to our family because family is the core of our lifestyle.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Grigoryan.black
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @grigoryan.black
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Grigoryan.black
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GRIGORYAN_BLACK
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