Ethical fashion venture launched by two Richmond alumni

New fashion venture launched by two Richmond alumni

Gaia Trussardi and Alex Legler

Two alumni from Richmond, The American International University in London, who wanted to make a difference to the world around them, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, have come together to launch an exciting new fashion brand with the help of Paul Roger Tanonkou, a Cameroonian clothes designer.

Gaia Trussardi, who studied Sociology and Anthropology at Richmond, and Alex Legler, who graduated with a BA in Business Administration with a Major in Finance, have launched www.zenam.it as an innovative, digital fashion brand.

This work involves a radical career change for Gaia who, up until 2018, was the Creative Director of Trussardi Group, internationally renowned as an Italian lifestyle brand that is synonymous with excellence, craftsmanship and contemporary elegance.

Gaia explains why and how she wanted to make a difference:

“I was looking for a new start up situation out of personal interest. My friend and fellow Richmond graduate Alex, had a great idea – to establish a start-up incubator for migrants.

While developing our plans we encountered Paul Roger Tanonkou, a Cameroonian clothes designer who had already attempted the launch of a collection in Italy but unfortunately, because of the countless problems he faced, his original project never took off.

Then the first lockdown in March 2020 took place and we had to put the project with the Red Cross group of immigrants on hold. That is why we decided to take Paul Roger  under our wing and to re-establish his brand Zenam –  starting from the beginning: outlining the mission and the DNA of the brand, building a product strategy, and positioning it in the market while integrating all values we wanted to express.” 

With the help of Gaia and Alex, Paul Roger Tanonkou is making an impact with Zenam (which in Bamiléké dialect means ray of sunshine), a brand which represents his unique multicultural identity, blending European-style cuts and prints with African tradition.

For Gaia and Alex, this launch is just the start as Alex said,

“We plan to expand this incubation structure to other ventures in arts and crafts, but also to other segments such as food and food retail. All our ventures will have to be Benefit Companies (the Italian equivalent of B Corp), and therefore have the dual objective of being economically viable and socially impactful.

“While Gaia and I have different competencies, our values and drives are very similar. Most importantly, we trust each other professionally. In our (ad)ventures, we have separate functions: Gaia is clearly more artistic and creative, I am more finance and operations driven. We build strategies together, and we both have elements to positively contribute to each other’s area of expertise. We are, “United in Diversity”.