March 2020. The world was experiencing the first intense months of mandatory quarantine. The hours in front of the TV multiplied and that, perhaps, explains the success of Making The Cut, the fashion design reality of Amazon Prime Video. One of the faithful spectators of the program was Andrea Salazar, designer from Antioquia and creator of the fashion brand SETA.
Two months later, the Colombian company received an invitation to be part of the second season of this show that is looking for the next big international fashion brand. Remembering it, Salazar confesses that “it was something of fate.”
“I get a lot of emails every day, some are ignored, some are not. For some reason I saw that and risked sending my personal information and that of my brand,” Andrea tells Diners from her Miami office. Although her expectations were not high, days later the Colombian was summoned for a first interview, which was followed by psychological and medical tests.
Thus, in July 2020, Andrea Salazar received the news of being the first Colombian and the second Latin American to participate in this Making The Cut, following a call that counted with more than 1,000 international designers.
SETA, the brand she founded in 2014 with her sister, has a timeless proposition. Among its highlights are structured jackets and dresses that mix the rock of the 90s with the fringes of the 20s and boleros that add their Latin touch.
Hosted by model Heidi Klum and image consultant Tim Gunn, the second season of Making The Cut is now available on Amazon Prime Video.
Your grandmother, like you and your sister, was a paisa ‘fashionista’, tell us more about her.
My grandmother traveled a lot to Europe and the United States. She bought clothes, we're talking about the '70s and '80s, and brought them to Colombia. I had six daughters, one of them my mother, so they all absorbed that fashion, which eventually became a legacy in the family.
Besides, my mom has been sewing since she was little. He studied patronage and that's where he started with design. This is why since I was very young I see dresses and I have had the influence of seams. Those pieces from my grandmother were inherited by my aunts and my mom, and now they belong to my sister and mine.
And how did that legacy continue in Andrea Salazar?
I grew up in Medellín but when I graduated from school, at 17, I moved to London for a year. There I fell in love with street style and realized what fashion really was. I started taking courses and looking for more because I was really passionate.
I returned to Colombia to study international business and while studying I was selling clothes that I brought from abroad. I always had in mind to have a fashion business. When I graduated I went to Brazil and there I could learn more about the industry: suppliers, materials and fabrics. I really liked the proposal of the Brazilians.
In 2014, when I returned to Medellín, I decided to open SETA. Already in 2015 I came to live in Miami and opened the second store with my sister Eliana. We started working together and dressing up celebrities.
READ COMPLETE ARTICLE
