Alumni Portrait - Yamina Bouali, Mena Miya
Graduated of our MBA Luxury Brand Marketing and International Management, Yamina Bouali launched her brand: Mena Miya. She tells us about her journey.
Tell us about your experience at Sup de Luxe. Why did you choose our school?
I always had my Mena Miya project in mind since I was little.
I didn't know how to go about it, so I wanted to be trained in the sector of French and international luxury, in product marketing and in managing a brand from start to finish, from its creation to the management of customer relations.
I simply found on Google the best MBA in luxury marketing in Paris; Brand Marketing and International Management.
I was quickly won over by the programs offered by Sup de Luxe. Once I passed the entrance exam, I entered Sup du Luxe in 2016 and was a laureate in July 2017.
What is the best memory of your training?
I have had several, but the most memorable for me are the "Guest Speakers" conferences: when we had face to face the great founders and leaders of the luxury sector in Paris.
We were given the opportunity to discover their backgrounds, their stories and to exchange with them live. These conferences had a great impact on me, simply because they helped me to visualize where I want to be in the future, to be inspired by the speakers and to strengthen my self-confidence.
Tell us about your career and its evolution from school to today?
At the end of Sup de Luxe, I immediately created my brand Mena Miya, but very quickly, I experienced failure. I didn't have the broad shoulders to take on such a big project.
This failure quickly made me realize my limits and what I had to work on. I therefore developed my network, my finances and my professional experiences in France and abroad. The goal was to immerse myself in different types of management in order to take the best of each and incorporate it into my Mena Miya business model.
Since then, I devote all my time, energy and savings to my company.
I refer to my project as a newborn baby, and me as a mother. It needs all my attention to make it grow and that's what I'm doing day by day since its official birth in September 2020.
How have your acquired skills been useful for your career path?
As entrepreneurs, at the beginning of any project, we have to know how to touch everything. Brand strategy, finance, product marketing, e-commerce website design...
Everything I learned during my school years, my professional experiences and mainly Sup de Luxe helped me to coordinate several aspects of Mena Miya.
The most interesting for me was the marketing strategy that I was able to optimize thanks to the DMP that we had realized during our year at Sup de Luxe.
Why did you choose to launch your brand?
I have always wanted to work for our planet in order to bring my contribution and transmit my universe, my personal touch. All this while conveying the values that I was taught.
Since I was a little girl, I knew I was going to create my own clothing brand. I have connected the values that are dear to me, including contrasting fashion, American sport-chic of the 90s, super comfy, sports, music, travel, photos, quotes, beautiful words, sharing and environmental protection, to give birth to dreams, creativity and art.
What is the concept and ambitions of your brand?
We are specialized in the recycling of unsold sportswear. We work in partnership with sports brands in order to accompany them in the management of their unsold goods and outlets.
Our business model is based on the re-design of unsold goods and the proposal of a new style: sport chic / casual / ready-to-wear. A style that is essentially around mini skirts and cropped tops for women in limited edition via summer collections only.
Mena Miya is also connected to Chabio, my non profit organization, to travel, music, words...You have to imagine it as our school system. The sun in the middle represents the different collections. Around it are the planets, which represent the different pillars.
The goal is to create synergies between these different aspects of Mena Miya in order to offer an emotional and unique user experience.
Mena Miya has the ambition to become the first brand to recycle unsold textiles. We want to reduce the number of destroyed finished products, to reduce CO2 emissions, water waste and to contribute to the awareness of future generations to the protection of the environment.
What is the news of Mena Miya?
We have launched our first collection under the name of Footprint. You can discover it on our website: menamiya.com.
We are also in the process of signing collaborations with two sportswear brands to offer new collections together... Stay tuned.
What can we wish you for the future of your career?
In one word ... prosperity.
Explain your vision of luxury in one sentence.
Luxury is the valorization of different types of art in a single product or service.