January Editorial

Let’s start from the end and from a wish I have in my strong and powerful heart: happy 2021 to all of you who follow us, this terrible 2020 is over and it will take very little for next year to be better.

But since we at Crida (i.e. Daniela and I) are tenacious and positive women, we also want to suggest, perhaps in a somewhat unexpected way, not to throw away everything that has been in this 2020 and to make an effort to find and preserve what is good, even if in a very small part, we have lived.

Women, I am convinced, are the ones who in these twelve months have had to bear the heaviest load of fatigue and stress. They took care of their work (often adapting it to smart working) but also of the family, of the house, jumping through hoops to make ends meet.

They have looked after sick relatives, helped their children in distance learning, scared or intractable (depending on age), they often comforted worried husbands with the natural predisposition to organize everything, but also to welcome and reassure without ever having time for themselves.

A few days before Christmas on Crida’s instagram page we received a message from a doctor from the Niguarda hospital. In congratulating us on our clothes in a very nice way he wrote to us it would be very nice if we too, who have been locked up in the hospital for a year and do not have time even to buy essential things, could wear them …

We can only imagine what this period was like for those who work every day in a hospital, the fatigue of continuous work and the weight of the physical and psychological suffering that a person carries inside having to deal with fear, illness and often death.

Giorgia’s dream (this is the name of the doctor who contacted us) seemed so right and possible, as if it were a small symbolic ransom for a category of women who really did and continues to do a lot for all of us.

We inquired about how many doctors and nurses there are in that department, about sizes and tastes, and we arrived two days before Christmas, loaded with packages to be delivered and put under the tree. Why am I telling you this? Because for me and Daniela it was a beautiful moment, a greater satisfaction than any editorial in the newspapers.

Seeing the smiles of these women and their joy in receiving our gifts, looking at the photos they sent us, beautiful with our models, next to the Christmas tree, was for us a more intense emotion than any other gift.

I would not like to forget this day because it gave a profound and important meaning to the work we do, it was a symbolic and spontaneous gesture to say thank you to all the women who work in healthcare. At Crida, we make clothes, we don’t save lives, but we work in a sector, that of fashion, which is fundamental for the Italian economy and which has been heavily affected by the pandemic.

Daniela and I have thought about this project for a long time and we debuted on the market exactly in January 2020, in the most disastrous and difficult year for this sector since the war. They have been very complicated months, a swing of emotions, from the encouraging ones for the positive feedback to our brand, to the negative ones in the face of the block suffered by the market due to the lockdown.

We have never, not even for a moment, thought of giving up. We gritted our teeth, worked every day of the year perhaps with recklessness but with a determination that in the end rewarded us.

2020 is over and we survived, even if with difficulty, and it is no small thing for a brand that was just born, still little known, in a world where competition is fierce.

Thanks to all of you who have followed, encouraged, bought and appreciated us. For us every single order online or from the stores has been precious and has helped us to move forward and to continue to believe in Made in Italy, in the quality and sustainability of our garments. To see a glimmer of light.

The new spring summer collection is about to arrive which is made up of wonderful colors, totally Italian silks, cottons and linens, clothes that make you want to go out, to feel beautiful, to be elegant and special even in everyday life.

Creating these dresses in the darkest period of our life was like betting on optimism. This is the challenge we all face today.

So in these first days of the new year we try to contrast the painful memories with a list of joys, even small ones, that have helped us. If we don’t start with ourselves to look positively at the future, the world will be more difficult to change.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Cristina and Daniela, from Crida