1. Tell us a few things about your background…What was your life like before Busking Bears?

Tommaso: More relaxed! Just kidding, I personally was the little brother always trying to imitate what Irene was doing. This revealed to be a bad idea sometimes, especially at the time I wasn’t good at riding a bike like she was, and I fell down into a small river hurting myself while she was laughing at me. We both were boy scouts during our childhood and later: exploring woods, building tents and stuff, hiking in the mountains. We also travelled together sometimes, looking for something new, but nothing in particular after all. This is what inspired us to start a clothing brand for adventurers: maybe we’ve always been wanderers, after all. Now Irene is a designer/illustrator, I am a Master University student in International Management.

Irene: I guess he said everything already. I just want to add that I’m glad that we’re in this together: Tommaso completes all the tasks that I’m horrible at (like – ehm – dealing with money). I do everything else: he has good taste but he lets me take all the “visual” choices, so we basically trust each other 100% and that’s amazing. My life before Busking Bears was rather good, but now just became better.

2. How did you come up with the idea of starting your own line?

Tommaso: Totally Irene’s idea. I was in Bulgaria for work and during a Skype call she told me that she needed my help for a project. When I got the big picture I just said “I’m in” and that’s how it all started.

Irene: I wanted to do something relevant and completely different from my freelance work, which was starting to be a little bit all-the-same-things-everyday kind of thing. Someone said that routine saves the people but in my opinion it slowly ruins them as well: I wanted to create something that speaks adventure and life-changing experiences for itself and possibly gives me a good excuse to travel more (and a good ol’ kick in the *ss to make more art).

3. Starting your own business can be risky sometimes, did you find any difficulties?

Tommaso: There is a risk even if you’re a couch potato and you sit there thinking “How great would it be to open my own clothing brand? Oh, but it’s too difficult and I have no skills nor money for doing something like this”. This risk is called regret.
Sure there are ordinary and extraordinary problems related to a business, and this is something we will always have to deal with. The good thing is that our team is very heterogeneous: Irene is a graphic designer, illustrator with a deep knowledge of the handmade/crafts market; I have economic, management and accountancy skills for running a business. Possibilities to solve big problems are major if both of us are specialized in different things, and more important: we can learn from each other.

Irene: I consider myself very bad when it comes to present my work to people, especially when I must try to convince them to buy it. While money hasn’t been a problem (not because we have lots of it, but because we were deeply convinced of what we were doing!), presenting my illustrations as finished products on tshirts was an obstacle that I had to face. When we started to sell the first t- shirts I was rather surprised, but when Tommaso told me (after just a month from the launch!) that he had to restock some sizes because they were selling like bread I was astonished. I guess I’ll always be an introvert when it comes to present my illustrations, but I’m sure I’ll deal with this with my brother’s help.

4. You are mainly selling online through your Etsy Shop, why did you choose this particular platform?

Irene: I’ve already had experience with Etsy for selling my illustration related products so we chose something that we knew already. While it’s not as popular in Italy, it’s well known in other countries, especially UK and USA. We’re actually not aiming to italian people, but we placed our target to foreign countries, so the choice became obvious. Besides I’m the representative of the Etsy Italy group for the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.

5. How is it working with your sibling? What are the pros and cons?

Tommaso: Just pros. We obviously knew each other very well before starting Busking Bears and I personally think that this project is giving us the chance to keep ourselves in contact, especially since we both left the parent’s house. Irene has lots of skills, ideas, knowledge, but mostly she likes getting things done. That’s why I accepted to be a co-founder of Busking Bears.

Irene: As Tommaso said, Busking Bears is a good excuse for getting in touch, otherwise I’d just ignore him. Just kidding, of course. We’re sons of two entrepreneurs, so it’s quite impossible to see things differently from each other.

6. What is the inspiration behind your designs?

Irene: Nature, mostly. I’ve spent the last two years being quite obsessed with botanical prints, animals and small critters and basically all the things that I can find. I consider nature as the greatest escape from my daily routine: I’m in the happiest mood when you spot me looking for strange pebbles or particular flowers on the ground, or taking note of the shapes of leaves in my sketchbook.

7. What type of person is your line designed for?

Irene: The core is to wear something made out of high-quality materials, but with some meaningful designs on it. If you’re the type of person that likes hand-printed designs, knows well that craft has a higher value than products that you find in big stores and you just want to become part of a community of travelers, then you’re in our target.

8. One of your products, The Elements T- shirt, is gathering funds for a local dog pound, can you tell us a bit more about it?

Tommaso: The “Wanderlust” t-shirt is part of that project as well: it’s the one with the big bear printed on the front.
The Rifugio di Villotta is a dog pound in Villotta di Chions (Italy). We had this extra stock of t-shirts and we wanted to do something good for a local association that is involved into the animal assistance. We do love animals and particularly dogs since we have got one big and hairy at our home. Since the launch of Busking Bears this stock has been put on sale and the entire revenue will be donated to the Rifugio di Villotta association. We absolutely think that opening a business (doesn’t matter how big it is) means to be part of a community and be responsible for what happens inside the society as everyone else is.

9. Beyond Busking Bears now, what are your hobbies? How do you pass your free time?

Tommaso: I’m the kind of person that wants to see the world. The only problem is that silly voice into my head that says “Come on man, it’s expensive / it could be dangerous / you have other things to do now”. So when I would like to go somewhere the first thing to do is buy the flight ticket, so then I’m stuck and I HAVE to go there!
I travel quite a lot, doing adventurous or spiritual kind of trips, but also I love running, hiking, biking and reading as well.
By the way I do not consider Busking Bears as a job. It is more like the way I can express myself and I always find time for doing this.

Irene: I can’t consider Busking Bears as my main job, but it’s quite part of it since I produce graphics and illustrations for a living. My free time is almost completely filled with roller derby, which is a female contact sport on roller skates. I’m the coach and co-founder of the Banshees, a team of amazing and talented girls that like to beat each other on roller skates twice a week. As the person in charge of this, I spend my days looking for new things to put in our trainings, organizing stuff and, most of all, keeping in contact with the girls of the gang. I also roller skate by myself, generally skating using longboards or skateboards (even if I suck at it), shredding at the skate park, walk, run, travel randomly and I think that’s it. Oh, and I like to read comics and collect books that would eventually form a pile at home (because I just like to pretend that I’m a smart person).

10. What does the future hold for Busking Bears?

Irene: You’ll see. We just finished planning our fall/winter moves, so we’re focusing on the short term things to be done. The long term stuff is quite pretentious but definitely not impossible. We’ll take it step by step and – speaking for me especially – see what Trieste is going to give us back. We’ve felt good vibes already so we’ll just see where is this going to lead us for now.

You can find Busking Bears on ETSY  , FACEBOOK and TUMBLR !