Long read
We spoke with Katarina Petrovic about her new brand, The Modest, with which she is slowly winning over the Norwegian market. Her tribute to family and tradition is especially striking because she launched it together with her mother. She told Vogue Adria everything about it.
You know those people you meet for the first time, yet you feel as if you have known them your whole life. That is exactly how I felt with Katarina Petrovic, whom I had never met in person, but that one Zoom call with her on a Wednesday a few months ago felt like the beginning of a new friendship. Yes, Katarina is warm, kind, open and ours, except that she lives in Norway and calls that country her home.
Our introduction was tied to a potential story about her new dream home, as she calls it, located about fifteen minutes from Oslo, in a beautiful area surrounded by forest, a place she never imagined she would move to. Two years ago we bought this mid century house, untouched for decades. We recently finished major renovations with the contractors and although we still have a lot of work ahead, we managed to achieve our vision and aesthetic while respecting the architecture and the original plan, she told me, her warm, smiling gaze dissolving every kilometer between Zagreb and Norway in that moment. If we learned anything, it is that things need time and should move slowly for a reason. Only then does a house become a real home, furnished with pieces that will last and carry meaning for us. I asked her at that moment whether Norway feels like home to her. It does, this is our home. We have practically everything here, everything except the heart. And even though I grew up here, and even though my children were born here, with all the certainty and possibilities in the world, something still pulls us back down, it pulls us home. The Balkans are simply impossible to separate from us. Our mindset and our ways are so dominant and visible in everything we do, from how we dress and the atmosphere in our homes to how we raise our children and the ways we love. At the end of the day, we are Balkan.
Katarina and her family moved from Serbia to Oslo 29 years ago, when she was two. Her husband, Balmin, is from Bosnia, and today they have three children: Issah (5), Bianca (almost 3), and Ilias (1). As she tells me in fluent Serbian Bosnian about the summers she spent in her hometown of Valjevo and how she would return to the north of Europe feeling nostalgic, she mentions that her parents now live thirty seconds away from their home. And that is where the creative story about Katarina begins to unfold. The Modest is her step into fashion and at the same time a tribute to tradition and family, because she is building the brand together with her mother. It is our shared project that brings us even closer than before, if that is even possible, she says with a laugh before continuing. The Modest is a feeling and a dream that has been growing in me and with me for several years, but it actually began a bit more spontaneously than I expected, and maybe at a slightly strange moment with our youngest baby who had just been born. I imagine it as a way of life, a way of relating to things. That is why the inspiration behind everything carries a bit of nostalgia. I am going back to the values of an earlier approach to making things to an aesthetic and sustainability that once formed the foundation of creation.
To begin with, there is the Wool Šubara signed by this small family run workshop, a hat that recalls the increasingly popular accessory of the season. I have always been fascinated by šubaras and found them aesthetically appealing. Still, I wanted our version to be more practical, more versatile and better suited to the climate here. That is why we created our own version. We took the inspiration, looked at it with fresh eyes and adapted it to the present day so that it fits the way we live now and what we expect from it. We also gave it a more sophisticated yet still practical look. We did not want it to resemble a classic pillbox hat, because that often feels too costume like for everyday use, and on top of that it does not serve the purpose of keeping you warm during winter.
Photo: Emma Šukslić
Watching Katarina and the effortless sense of style she radiated, both in life and in fashion, I caught myself thinking that a fashion career must be woven somewhere into her story. I was close. I studied journalism and was very interested in content marketing, so I dedicated my thesis to that field and to fashion journalism, which at the time was still quite new in our fashion sector. I started out as a fashion journalist, then moved into the commercial side, where I built my career at Aller Media, the second largest media company in Norway. I still work there today, while The Modest is something I work on in the evenings when the kids are asleep, she says with a laugh.
Those nights, she and her mother came up with the idea of stylized šubaras that they hand make at home, each created with great care and precision, complete with a hand sewn label on every individual piece. Aside from the way they evoke the timeless spirit of the traditional garments from this region, they also aim to inspire a healthier industry in which we slow down and help preserve and develop craft. The best way is to start with yourself and slowly grow into a rhythm you can and want to follow, Katarina explains, before continuing with her plans. The Modest will never move toward mass production, precisely because we want to bring back the way things were once made. We want to develop the modest ways of doing things. We are working on launching a few more must have pieces in small collections that we believe everyone should have in their wardrobe.
As I listened to Katarina explain the vision behind the brand, her face lighting up each time she spoke about slowing down and returning to the small things in daily life, she mentioned another idea for the near future creating furniture and objects as well as vintage drops of metal cookware. The Modest aims to be an interdisciplinary brand in fashion and interiors, one that connects the past with the present while also challenging it. Our collections include our own designs, second hand furniture and objects, all in The Modest style, calm and balanced. Whether it is clothing, furniture or objects, the collections are timeless and complement what already exists around us. We are also working on collaborations with smaller brands so that together we can preserve craft, Katarina added. I asked her whether this is also a way of soothing the nostalgia she might feel for her homeland and her connection to her roots, something that was unmistakable in the way she spoke, moved and smiled.
Photo: Emma Šukslić
I am not sure whether it is a form of healing or simply a part of who I am. But everything I felt and everything I grew up around, everything that followed me from childhood, whether it was the scent of the air when we stepped off the plane, the women on our streets or my grandmother’s tablecloths, all contributed to the creation of The Modest. At one point everything simply became clear, from the name to the vision and the aesthetic. All of it comes from our roots.
Although that day we were supposed to be arranging a story about interiors and her new home which we will have to wait a little longer to see completed, my conversation with Katarina shifted toward fashion. And I did not mind at all. In fact, the inspiration and creativity she radiated gave me a completely new way of looking at ethno aesthetics, an optimistic kind of nostalgia, and made me want to slow down my own thoughts. There was something contagious about the creativity she carried. I am driven by actions, feelings and thoughts that inspire me, make me feel present and motivate me to keep growing. Lately, handwork has fulfilled me the most when I create something with my own hands, I feel that sense of presence. For me, creativity is not necessarily about making something concrete, but about the feeling that awakens something in you and then expresses itself whether through a powerful outfit, a good meal, a beautiful space or even a Šubarica, she says with a laugh. I told her at the end that I cannot wait to see the interior of her new home.
Photo: Emma Šukslić
Photo: Emma Šukslić
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