Image
It was quite a shock. The shock of coming home from a long, fun weekend, to find that everything in your house was taken by thieves. There was not a trace of the filleting and cutting machines. They took everything, even the merchandise that was ready for delivery. That was when Norbey Mora, who had been a partner with the company for 15 years, decided to go back to working as an employee.
He remembered the struggles of his youth in a supermarket chain, where he started working in the early nineties as a stock clerk. Except that now, instead of having to work to pay for his Economics degree, he had to struggle to pay off the debts from that unforgettable weekend in 1995.
Yet, not everything had disappeared: He still had his determination to become an independent businessman together with his wife and two daughters, who had worked with him to design a unique line of women' s underwear. He knew that meeting his obligations with his creditors would go a long way in helping their financial rebirth, and that he might have to start from scratch at any time, so he had to be ready.
For four years, all he thought about was getting back to the underwear market. Although he had never been an operator, he knew the cutting techniques. He wasted no chance to learn the manufacturing process, the supplies, the providers, and the inside of the business.
What Norbey did not know was that his destiny would not be marked by women' s underwear, but by girdles. Around 1999, this product was used for orthopedic purposes to help proper posture. That is how Fajas Lady came into being. His new company transformed the old concept of the product, and turned it into an aesthetic element that, at first, combined the technique of body wrapping to reduce belly fat with the flexibility of latex.
The Road to Success
Norbey reminisces with emotion. His stoic character and solid frame are symbols of his strength in the face of hardship he changes position to get comfortable in the chair inside his company' s meeting room, relaxes and stretches his legs
" I understood then that today' s woman wants to look and feel good instantly, and that is what we sell now, and that is what opened the U.S. market to us eight years ago" said the businessman, whose exports of latex and cotton girdles to the U.S. increased five-fold from 2011 to 2012, when the FTA went into effect. This year he expects to surpass the goal of 70,000 dollars in sales.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, from January to April of 2013 Colombia exported 9.6 million dollars in girdles, representing an increase in sales of two million dollars as compared to the same period in 2012. These figures coincide with the 27% growth in control garments during the first year of FTA with the United States.
" With the FTA, we focused our efforts in the American market. This boom helped our image, and made Colombian products popular. American business owners are looking at Colombia as a good investment opportunity, and they want to manufacture here to benefit from the FTA. That is generating more jobs and creating a better image" said the businessman, who with help from PROCOLOMBIA, participated in several sector-related fairs in Miami and Las Vegas in 2012.
In order to enhance the results and take even more advantage of the sales from the FTA, PROCOLOMBIA President María Claudia Lacouture announced that Colombian business owners will receive more assistance with seminars about regulations of the cosmetics sector in the United States, and on the topic of rules of origin for the apparel sector
" It' s important to know that between May 2012 and April 2013, 222 new products were exported to the United States, and 30 were from the apparel sector. Moreover, there are currently 116 new companies in this sector competing in the American market," stated Lacouture.
Now, Fajas Lady is a company with almost 45 employees that tries to innovate every day. Over the last 14 years, it has launched 74 garments, and 22 of those are still being manufactured. The company always strives to maintain a confidential manufacturing collection for potential customers like the United States.
