Amy Pugsley 
Winter is almost here or already here depending on who you ask—that means transitioning from beachwear to cozy layers. If you have been seeing tracksuits, minimalist pieces, and cute pastels splashed across Instagram then you need to familiarize yourself with Cairo-based streetwear brand, NOTFOUND. This week Flair Magazine sat down with NOTFOUND to learn more about the brand that has taken social media by storm.
What’s behind the name NOTFOUND?
The name ‘NOTFOUND’ stems from the struggle of finding high-quality essentials at a fair price in the local market. Our aim is to create essentials that draw influences from comfort and minimalism that cater to the everyday individual.
When did you and your partner start the brand and what empowered you to do it?
We always had the idea of starting a fashion line. We’ve had the name for our Instagram page “NOTFOUNDCO” for over three years, but never had the time to start. Our designs and creative direction ideas flourished in May during the first wave of COVID-19. Once we were set on our designs and fits, it all escalated very quickly. We took advantage of all our sources and suppliers during this time, as a business in this industry was already very slow due to the pandemic.
Our personal style in fashion is what empowered and influenced us to create comfy, minimal sets that can be worn everyday, but can still be styled in your own way to get the look you desire.
What would you say are the key elements for starting and running a successful business?
There are many elements that go into starting and running a business. First, study the market and decide on what type of audience you will targeting. In our case it’s the current and younger generation, which is very up to date with fashion trends and styles. Our designs, branding and marketing all are all made to attract this audience. Second, research and experiment in order to get your supply of sources that will run your business. Third, behind any successful business there has to be a good management team. We strongly believe that our start-up doesn’t only rely on us and our vision, but on how we attract and assemble a great team bringing in a range of skills in order for our company to operate smoothly.
How would you define your brand’s aesthetic? Would you call yourselves a streetwear brand?
Our passion for styling minimal streetwear inspired the creation of must-have essentials in our hometown Cairo. NOTFOUND’s aesthetic started out with basic designs, supported by a minimalistic coming out campaign shoot.
Even though we are all about minimalism and will always continue to drop collections that include basic sets, we are working on new out of the box collections. Stay tuned for our upcoming collections which will be very different and daring compared to our previous ones.
Your Pastel line sold out and was recently restocked. What has surprised you about the success the brand has had so far?
We are extremely surprised at how quickly our Core and Pastel collection sold out. We studied the market before relaunching but the demand on our products was much higher than anticipated. We now increased the quantities for our last restock and are hoping for the same success in our upcoming collections.
Your clothing so far is very gender-neutral. Was it a conscious decision to offer a genderless range?
We wanted to create a unisex brand from the very start. Unisex clothing has only recently become very popular meaning that it’s variety is still pretty limited, at least in the local market.
We always love shopping in the men’s section and our ideas and designs stemmed from that. Not only do we want to promote being able to wear what you’re comfortable in but having quality street wear available for both genders. Unisex is the new cool.
What’s next for your company?
We now ship worldwide but we want to focus and target the international market further.
We are very interested in the Asian market and are aware of the rising popularity of streetwear in their fashion trends. We are looking forward to shooting our next campaign there and target their market further.
Opening up a store is also definitely part of our long run plan. Next summer we are planning on having a moving pop up shop with our latest summer collection. Stay tuned.
