A Tipperary-born brand run by a mother and her daughter, Victoria Stoyanova has seen rapid growth for their brand, Zingy Days, and the creation of what she calls their ‘staple bags’, along with their newest vegan animal-print piece.
Victoria came from Bulgaria to a small town in Tipperary at the age of 3, where she grew up trying on dresses her mother made, which later led her to take up sewing herself.
She told RSVP Live: “I’ve always loved to rummage through her wardrobe ever since I was younger. Then Zingy Days, how it just kind of evolved to what it is now, has just been over the last few years; we’ve just been creating pieces.
“I’ve just been expressing my creativity, which has been built up since I was younger. So, I’m kind of healing my younger child, or whatever you want to call it. It’s been so fun.”
Navigating the COVID lockdown, Victoria narrowed her focus to bags, which are now her brand’s signature product.
“It’s just been handbags, we were kind of just wanting to stay consistent with a particular product. Especially when I’m not wearing the most colourful or bright outfit, and I kind of want to throw on a handbag.
“Sometimes it’s accessories or jewellery; for me, it’s a handbag. I think it’s like the best accessory you can wear. It really just speaks for itself sometimes.”
“Our bags, especially, we kind of like to make them as individual seasons or going transitioning through seasons, sometimes it’s an emotion that I want to get people to feel.
“So let’s say it was close to International Women’s Day, and I wanted the women in my life to feel more empowered, and I was like, ” How can I do that?
“So, I built a suit bag, and you can take off different-coloured bow ties from it. It was magnetic. So, that was one of the bags where I was thinking, “Oh, I’m finally kind of putting a piece of kind of art onto a bag.
“I really just want to play along with creating modular pieces.”
Flash forward to the brand’s staple Éire Bags, and their most recent Giraffe print bags are flying off their online site.
“Animal print, I don’t think, will ever lose its wow factor and just lose its popularity. “We were so happy with the giraffe vegan fabric that we found. It was just like the perfect material.
“I’d never seen it before in my life. And then we just wanted to design a shape, a silhouette that’s kind of slouchy, comfortable. I always hate it when straps are too short, and they just slide off.
“I just need the weight to be evenly distributed. So then it doesn’t really slide off. So many of our bags can be worn shoulder- or cross-body. So, depending on what you like, how you like your bag to sit on your body, and how active you are, and things like that.
“Giraffe print is one of our best sellers. We love continuing to design different silhouettes with our draft print incorporated.
“For the Éire bags and the Celtic symbols on them, I just always see those symbols on earrings and jewellery pieces, and I was like, that would be really nice on a bag.
“Those are the ones that I really, really liked and were easyish to do. So, it’s never that easy when you’re doing a design print like that. But making them stay on the bags and getting special machinery to have them on the bags was the kind of progression there as well from the original bags, which we had to do ourselves, and that was very time-consuming.
“We didn’t expect them to get so popular so quickly.”
The brand has been on a journey, both in terms of success and in its brand image, which has evolved over the years.
“I really love the old kind of film,’ 90s movies, and the style inspiration from them that I take, we don’t really want to have a definitive look.
“We want to constantly have and explore different genres and see what works. But also tying into what the core principle of the brand is, which is, you know, make everything with love, make everything as a way to express a personality that we’re feeling or an emotion and make people kind of let the bags really speak for themselves.
“Our collections really tie into the Éire bags, the Irish culture that we just wanted to show our appreciation, because Ireland has been our home for so long, and we love Ireland, and that was one of the reasons why we wanted to be out in nature and really showcase the green, beautiful scenes of Ireland.
“We just want people to see us as a family-run business that, you know, loves art and loves fashion, and they’re constantly just trying to bring something unique to the Irish fashion scene, always playing around with silhouettes.“I think we really try to give people what they want, especially for, you know, let’s say, festival season. Something comfortable as well, especially with Irish weather, something waterproof. So, all of our handbags have waterproof inner linings to protect all your valuables in there because, growing up, I’ve always had so many things in school bags and tote bags, just always something leaking, or fading colours on the bags and things like that.”
Want to see more of the stories you love from RSVP? To add RSVP as a preferred source of news on Google, simply click here
