Success story of Apilat company: fairy tale mood on special occasions

Building up your export is a long and hard work whose results you could see not earlier than in a year. Looking for feedback from the graduates of our Office’s learning programmes, we learnt about the achievements of Lyubov Apilat who participated in 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗨𝗸𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗣𝗥𝗢 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟴-𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟵. She is the co-founder of «Apilat Wedding» company that was established back in 2012, when two sisters, Halyna and Lyubov, decided to change the format of their classic-style atelier and to focus on wedding dresses.

The sisters, who are graduates of the Kyiv National Technology and Design University, had been making clothes for 5 years already. Once, their female customer ordered a wedding dress and a set of silk underwear for the bridal morning. The result of their hard hand work was so fascinating for them that the sisters decided to dedicate all their time to wedding garments. That was the start of it.

Presently, Apilat present three collections of wedding underwear made of natural silk in the affordable luxury segment every year. Sensual and romantic, playful and reserved – all models are marked by precise handmade embroidery, sophisticated French and underwear stitches as well as by materials of exceptional quality.

As Lyubov told, she applied to participate in the Programme, because she lacked practical knowledge for developing their export business. At that time, the sister’s atelier was a small family business that had one wholesale customer only. Lyubov did not have to wait for the training results for too long and provided the following feedback one year later:

«Since our mentors were people with a real experience in export activities, our course was quite intensive and full with practical and very useful advice. I am very grateful to Anu-Mall Naarits for all recommendations on how to choose partners abroad. We take it much more seriously now and have more guts to decline proposals from would-be partners who are not suitable for us and could damage our brand’s reputation. Thanks to this approach, we found a partner in Spain and started to export to Europe.

We also registered a company and thus switched from the individual-entrepreneur scheme (FOP) – now we operate as a limited liability company, which gives us more opportunities for cooperation with both Ukrainian and international partners and contractors. One of our new business areas is export to direct customers, we are in the process of arranging all necessary processes now».

In 2020, Apilat company managed to double its sales and hopes that its development will not be affected by the global pandemic that much.