Andy and Siyana Huszar: Empowering women through fashion
Written by Charles Noyes
Photos by Kelly Z Photography
Sponsored by Valley Home Improvement
Published in Northampton Living (November 2021)
When Andy and Siyana met in 2012, they were both firmly engaged in the corporate world of New York City. After a career in finance, he was a professor at Rutgers Business School while she still worked in finance, designing financial products for an insurance company. They quickly hit it off, but three months later Siyana revealed a secret: as a hobby, she had been designing and selling clothing through Etsy and it was quickly becoming her passion.
Siyana also had a dream. She was raised in Bulgaria and moved to the US when she was 18 to attend college. The granddaughter of a famous Bulgarian fashion designer, she wanted to explore that part of herself while simultaneously making a positive social impact. Andy’s response when he heard this was, “I think you’ve already started your business. Look at what you’ve accomplished on Etsy.”
Fast forward to today and Andy and Siyana live together in the Pioneer Valley with their two children and a growing fashion brand with an office in Florence. That business, called Marcella, is named after Siyana’s Bulgarian/Armenian grandmother who taught her everything she knows about fashion and design. Siyana said, “It’s women-oriented and focused mainly on female empowerment,” which was one of the main reasons why they settled in the Valley.
Through their kids’ school, they’ve come into contact with a great community of families. Some of their favorite family activities include exploring the outdoors, hiking, going to the beach and visiting Mt. Tom. They’re a multilingual family speaking French, Bulgarian, and English at home, sometimes all at once! But along with the aspects of the Valley they love, they’ve spent much of their time locally growing their business together. “The Valley has been nothing but welcoming. We weren’t sure what to expect when we moved here but we feel so privileged to be a part of this community.”
Nevertheless, it’s Marcella that takes up most of their time. “It was around 2014,” Siyana shared, “that I began exploring how I could expand my Etsy business. So I quit my job to do it full time. I built my online boutique and built a vertically-integrated Bulgarian operation, which handles design, production and warehousing all at once.” Andy, on the other hand, provided feedback and commentary. “My business expertise came in handy,” he added, “So many businesses have combined fashion with social impact and I felt that we could become a part of that amazing trend.”
What Siyana had ultimately hit on was an accessibly priced designer fashion brand, one that was priced far less than the competition even though it was ethically produced. By 2017, Marcella had become the second most popular fashion brand on Etsy (out of 24 million businesses). “That was when we realized this was something we should fully pursue together,” Andy smiled, “It was going to be a two-person job to grow a company in the way we envisioned.”
Siyana added, “Today we have over 50 employees globally - with a team in Bulgaria handling the production and logistics and a team in Florence focusing on customer service and marketing. The U.S. part of the business is growing. We decided to move here because both of us are strongly motivated by female empowerment and we have designed our company in such a way that every aspect of its operation is oriented towards advancing women and girls. Whether it’s the fact that it’s a female fashion brand that’s accessibly priced, the fact that our predominantly female production team enjoys a living wage, free healthcare, 20 days annual paid vacation and a pension or the reality of our company’s social impact.
The social impact side of Marcella is accomplished in partnership with a global NGO called CAMFED. “CAMFED (“Campaign for Female Education”) supports 5 days of school for an underprivileged girl for every design we sell. Our sales fund the one-day equivalent cost of books, transportation, menstrual products, uniforms, school fees, and anything else needed for a girl to go to school for one day. We provide five days worth of support with every design sold and thus far we’ve sponsored over 150,000 school days for girls.”
At the end of the day, Andy and Siyana believe that their direct-to-consumer business model – and its lower cost margins than those of the traditional fashion industry - allows them to pass along substantial benefits to Marcella’s consumers, its employees and its overall community. “It’s who we are as people,” Andy commented.
“We’ve each learned so much from corporate America. But we wanted to fill in the holes we saw in the fashion industry. We’re both idealists with immigration stories. We find it important to give back and do business in a way where we don’t have to make an artificial choice between being profitable and pushing down others. This business is founded on not compromising between success and ethics while trying to lift up everyone around us. It’s what customers seem to like about our business, as well, and has thankfully led to Marcella’s ever-growing success.“
