INTERVIEW: EYES ON MARANGA

Tell us a little bit about Maranga and how the brand started? Maranga is a swimsuit brand inspired by the colorful and tropical surroundings in Brazil, blended with edgy Nordic attitude. After spending most of my younger years traveling back and forth to South America, the culture and lifestyle grew on me. I actually first started working with a Brazilian brand, but after being a part of designing their swim collection I felt I had to do something on my own and interpret both cultures into what now ended up being Maranga.

What does it mean for you to be able to show your collection during New York Fashion Week? It feels kinda unreal and at first it didn't really sink in. But now I've just been very focused for the last six months and really tried to put together a collection and a show that will set a new standard for Maranga and show who we are.

We're kinda newbies at this and the fact that we are doing this at such and early stage shows that we have a lot of guts and that Maranga hopefully will be an exciting brand to keep an eye on.

What is your vision when designing and what inspires you? First of all, I want to create something that gives me the right feeling. I love traveling to tropical areas and music is also such a big part of my life, so our collections, and especially this one, is actually based upon me trying to recreate the feeling traveling and music gives me.

I believe after viewing our show that people maybe will say that our prints are a little "wild" compared to what you normally see from the nordic fashion scene, but we made our collection for what we like to call "casual babes", and we try to have a pretty natural and down-to-earth apporach to our customers both here in our small Maranga-universe and on our instagram.

Can you give us any hints on what we can look forward to with your new collection? It has a little bit more darker vibe than Maranga's earlier collections, and this time I added more luxury and edge. This collection will also consist of more than just swimwear. 

When I first started to create this collection I was listening to Rihanna's - Diamonds (Remix) ft. Kanye West. I closed my eyes and got this magical feeling with Rihanna's bossy vibe with a lot of power, so that feeling mixed with Maranga's tropical side is what I want people to see and feel from our SS18 collection.

Is there someone special you would love to see wearing your clothes? Lizzy Van der Ligt for sure - her style is amazing! But I want to add that when I randomly see someone wearing one of our one-pieces at the beach or in the streets it gives me a great feeling. No matter who it is.