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- Reliquia and Blanca Founder Ana Piteira on What Exactly She Does to Stay Creative
Reliquia and Blanca Founder Ana Piteira on What Exactly She Does to Stay Creative
Instagram @anacpiteira
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When looking for tips and tricks and ways to be more creative, who better to ask than Ana Piteira, the mastermind behind some of Instagram’s most popular brands — Reliquia Jewellery, Blanca, Valet Studio, Aeyre Home and Respiro Studio?
Their founder and owner, Piteira saw gaps in the market for what each brand would eventually offer and so created them. And, since launching them, Piteira, a former law student and current owner of PR firm Sueno Communications (feel lazy yet?), has had to continually stay on top of what’s trending in fashion, accessories and homewares, as well as draw from other sources of inspiration, to consistently design or curate new products and collection.
So, how does Piteira do it? How does she manage to constantly stay creative? It was a question Alyce Tran put to Piteira on the second episode of POPSUGAR Australia’s new podcast Dinner For Two, hosted by Tran. Unsurprisingly, Piteira named travel as a key player among her sources of inspo, adding that she’s found it challenging not being able to travel much in the past two years.
“[Inspiration] comes from everywhere,” Piteira says. “The Aeyre logo — I took a photo of a menu, and we appropriated its font to be the logo.
“Even the coloured glasses we have — in Portugal, it’s such a thing, and it has been historically. There are really old, dingy stores that probably no one would go into but because I’m somewhat of a local, I go and explore and that’s where that idea came from. It’s so important to my process.”
Closer to home, like many other Sydneysiders, Piteira also takes inspiration from trips to Byron — which she says she took plenty of in the last year. “Not so much anything aesthetic, but I just like the feeling there,” she says.
And when she’s not travelling, Piteira uses Instagram for ideas, consuming all its content and imagery and getting into what she calls “Instagram rabbit holes”, just like the rest of us.
As for spotting trends, Piteira says she thinks of the act as more of an art than a science. “It’s super intuitive and it’s almost a fictional idea,” she says.
“What is a trend? It’s so different to everyone. Who would have thought 18 months ago that people would be wearing oversized shirting in the way that they are wearing it now? I’ve always just gone with my gut and what I’ve personally wanted and then been pleasantly surprised that people have picked up on it.”
To listen to the full chat, and hear how Piteira juggles all of her brands, how she’s grown them and her #1 tip for founders launching a consumer goods brand, hit play below.
