How did stones become soft? The story about the creation of KATSU brand.
Viktoria and Anton Golub tell us the story about KATSU.
Viktoria
“It began with visiting my friend in Moscow. She tried to teach me the dry needle felting technique. But I fought against it as I could. I was afraid that I would get carried away by it. That time I was creating plaster bas-reliefs and it was taking all my free time. But she persuaded me only to help her with a toy-present for our mutual friend’s daughter. We made it, and I crashed into felting of course.
My new hobby suddenly grew into the concept of making stone-like felted necklaces and earrings. I did such small things with a needle!
But then it struck me that I can make a big stone-like cushion! My experiments began. I had neither knowledge nor skill to bring my idea into life. It occurred to me that I should try wet felting technique — having no skill of it, again. It happened to be hard — physically hard. I decided to have my path denying all masterclasses and workshops. Having lost a lot of time I made the first cushion. That took me 7 days. Here it is, under Anton’s legs.”
Anton
“That’s an incredible footstool, I can’t work without it.”
Viktoria
“Technically it’s far from nowadays process. I washed it in the laundry machine and led other experiments. So it has such a funny texture now. A historical cushion!
One day I was invited to the designer exhibition-fair organized by lofts project “Floors”. That meant to produce a lot of stone-like cushions in a short time — one week. I was forced to find a way to produce poufs faster. Having scoured every youtube video-master class and articles, I understood what was wrong. Then my previous experience and new knowledge combined into new hacks take improved the quality and speed. Now I’m super proud of this technique. Moreover, we can train our workers quickly and easily now.”
Anton
“We took the best techniques, combined them with the previous experience and adapted them to our goals. So now we are several steps ahead. We have our know-how and we are constantly moving forward.”
Viktoria
“Going back to the story about the exhibition, I wasn’t sure what to show there first. Cushions or accessories. But when I got a crazy number of likes and comments under the cushion’s photo on social media, I realized that huge potential of this product. Of course, I was inspired by them, I admired every stone. I made it, took photos, observed from all angles. But never meant to make a brand from it. So, I not only sold all poufs and cushions on that fair, but also found my first big clients — Erart museum shop in Saint Petersburg, Russia. We had long productive relations after that. I can say that it was a breakthrough: I was noticed and I generated new business connections. It was 2012 and it seemed to be the official start of my business.”
Viktoria
“Brand and corporate identity appeared 3 years later. All this time it was unnamed. KATSU appeared when I asked my talented friend to help me with the corporate identity. I have a nickname Katsura Manchurian given by my friends, but it’s a long story. We came to the idea to shorten my nickname for 5 signs — KATSU. She made all brand identity and logo design — I fell in love with it. We aimed perfectly on the first try. We’re still using it. It was hard to create our logo we worked on it very thoroughly.”
“We had an idea of watercolor print that should be associated with Japanese calligraphy. I think we succeed. The whole story of soft KATSU stones is a series of accidental matches and insights. Meeting with my friend, felting addiction, spontaneous exhibition in lofts project, crazy experiments, my nickname transformation into the brand’s name, Japanese sounding, Zen aesthetics, calligraphy, and simplicity. Once in Aikido training, I learned that “katsu” means victory from Japanese. My name Viktoria has the same meaning. That’s incredible “What you call a boat, so it will float!”.
“I believe, that is how original products are born. In creative chaos of life but not on the marketer’s brainstorming with the motto “Let’s create sth great!”. Random matches and growing are still going on and we like it. That’s a life!”
Anton
“Our task is to feel what to do and do it. Not to make attempts in creating sth. I’m sure we are making progress and we are inspired by it”
Viktoria
“When I worked alone it was very hard! Once I realized that I needed more hands, I needed to gather a team. And Anton broke into my life and expanded the series of events. From that time we are developing our product together.”
Anton
“My management experience came at a crucial moment. A great product is a mixture of an excellent idea and a proper management. All should be balanced — the idea, the production, and the management. Now we don’t see any limit for our product. Yeah, the process can’t be super ideal. We deal with some difficulties and rough stuff, but we solve them together. Viktoria handles the product, creativity, and ideas. I’m responsible for the organization — so that is our family tandem.”
Viktoria
“Anton took some bold decisions that lead to a serious breakthrough in the technology. Therefore, we invented a few hacks in the production process. That was hard for me to let somebody produce stones. But demand has increased and to meet it we finally gathered the team and trained people this art. And only then I made a little step aside from the production process. In spite of it each stone turns out to be unique — since the material and the process are alive. When we lay out the wool creating the patterns it falls different each time. It’s great to understand that each stone is a unique story. Starting from the wool and finishing with the patterns that emerges chaotically like in nature”
Anton
“We gathered great people in our team, we trust them. They know their business and each of them brings something personal into the process.
We understand that our product is global and has no limits. Thus, we deliver our stones worldwide. I gather, our limit is only the planet Earth. But if Elon Musk reaches Martians one day, we will create KATSU stones for them too. But first, we want to create some specially for Elon. BTW, do you like stones, Elon?
We are proud that KATSU is not a commercial trick, but an alive product. The result of creative work, mojo, accidental matches and our skill developed by years. We understood that KATSU is more than physical poufs and cushions made from wool. KATSU is a harmonizing element. KATSU stones are a balanced mixture of the design and the function. They are harmony between the technical world and nature. They are Zen in design.”
