She is originally from Corrientes, worked for a decade in fashion in Paris and now exports handmade fabrics to Japan.

Corrientes designer María Abdala Zolezzi (48), better known as Maydi, says she has fashion in her DNA. At the age of six, she got her first sewing machine – a gift from her grandfather – with which she she made clothes for her dolls. His paternal grandparents, who had a button and fabric business, were his input suppliers. This little treadle sewing machine is still considered a relic by those who today export Argentine design to Japan, South Korea and other parts of the world, with a brand that bears his childhood nickname, Maydi.

The path to fashion as a profession was not direct, although during her teenage years she liked to look different and at 14 she went to the seamstress to order what interested her from fashion magazines. fashion to wear on your 15th birthday. remembers a bold dress with bows and a kind of tutu. His mother did not interfere in his choices.

At 18, he left Goya to study advertising at the Catholic University of Capital Federal. To pay her expenses, she worked as a saleswoman in a Creole silverware company where she came into contact with silversmiths from San Antonio de Areco, a place where she began to appreciate the craftsmanship present in her current brand.

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“What pushed me to study fashion was a trip to Europe. I felt that I had the opportunity to make a career there. And from this opportunity, I said to myself: it’s really what I love, I have always done. And there I started to take my first steps in the world of fashion in Paris, in 2001“, Explain. For the first time, he was sure of what he wanted to do, having also studied hotel management, where he had completed an internship.

“I left before the famous crisis. I had a French boyfriend waiting for me,” she says, who later became her husband and helped her find a job at a news agency, where she started as an assistant. “I started at 23, with a very low role, while learning to speak French“, remember. That same year, he took a course in Fashion Design in London at the London College of Fashion.

The first four years he worked with English Robert Doddwho had been a commercial director in Kenzo, which has a very large showroom in Paris. “I’ve worked in marketing and product development for different brands in the United States.”

Later, Maydi was part of the team of the always avant-garde firm Isabel funny, a name he pronounces in French, after having lived more than 10 years in Paris, from where he returned in 2012. At Marant, he takes care of the Italian market, and some time later he is commercial director of the firm Sonia Rykiel. The designer, who until then had been dedicated to the commercial space of brands, was able to channel her creativity in the staging of collections, in merchandising, and more activities related to the image of brands to which she worked, in contact with great creators. Until a person with whom he worked, a reference in the world of fashion in Paris, Patricia Lerat, who was commercial director of the Première Classe salon, always at the origin of the launch of the designers, told him: “I think it’s time for you to go back to your country and you can create something yourself.”. Maydi was separated from her husband, wanting to return to Argentina, and those words were an impulse. “That a visionary person, with so much experience, advised me something and that he saw my creative potential, I decided to come back.”.

Maydi returned to the city of Buenos Aires with extensive experience in international luxury brands and ready to fulfill her dream. Have your clothing brand.

“I wanted to do something my own and something Argentinian. I started researching the subject of natural fiberswhat were the resources we had in our country and there I discovered that Argentina is one of the main exporting countries of merino wool and that we are also the third largest exporter of mohair wool and other fibers such as vicuña. And that’s where my fascination with fibers was born,” he says.

He then made contact with wool producers and weavers. “At the end of 2013, I started creating a collection of accessories, which were scarves, collars and hats. And in February 2014 I had the opportunity to go to Milan to present my collection and I made my first international sale with one of the best stores in Milan who is called Bifi. They had bought me 50 necklaces in baby alpaca and merino wool, which for me was a great pleasure”, she underlines.

With this encouragement, he expanded the collection. And at each Fashion Week in Paris, he shared the space to show his own with other designers, not Argentinians, but Italians, friendly brands,” he explains. After the Milanese boutique, he resold in Lyon and in 2017, it reached the Japanese market with five outlets.

In the first Japanese order, they ordered 130 garments. This added to requests for other points, for what he found he lacked structure. “But I did. I started recruiting more staff In order to comply, she recounts this challenge that was presented to her and that she succeeded.

And he added: “I started to grow and also to work with people with young people, 28, 29 years old. Unfortunately, this ancestral tradition of weaving is being lost. Today, the girls continue to work with me and today, in 2023, I have a team of 10 artisans,” she says.

Says the designer who works with the two biggest fashion importers in Japan, Marubeni and Itochu. They import and in turn own many of the brands and stores that make up these holdings.

Her dream is to have her own boutique in Paris.. “And why not in Tokyo,” he says. “I’m breathing a little heavy,” he laughs. And he concludes: “Here in Buenos Aires I have my showroom in an apartment where I receive a lot of customers and especially a lot of tourists. But I would really like to have the money in the future to be able to have a store in Paris, the place where I trained professionally and it is also like my second home”.

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