Put on a Niki and show off Galicia
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ADRIAN BAULDEIt is not well seen to go "in the opposite direction", but that is the secret of a firm that from O Grove has revolutionized the world of t-shirts and souvenirs
Jul 18, 2021 . Updated at 05:00 a.m.WhatsappMailFacebookTwitterComment ·David Blanco is not afraid to swim against the current. He has been doing it since the mid-1990s, when he had just finished his military service and decided to set up some studios that he saw no benefit in and, instead of settling in the family's mechanical workshop, start up his own screen-printing company. "It was not easy. I was completely self-taught. And it was the nineties, huh? Back then there were no YouTube tutorials”, recalls this Grovense, creator of Galician Textile Distribution, Distega, the company that brings together the SeryPublic screen printing workshop and the successful brands Nikis Galicia and La Fábrica de Nikis.
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Surely you have heard of them. Or maybe not, but surely they have seen their shirts. They may even have some in the closet. Because Distega has specialized in making clothes with messages and designs in which, with a touch of breeching, Galicia is portrayed. The Galicia of always and today. The Galicia that designers see from the windows of the modern facilities that Distega has in Meloxo (O Grove). Through the crystals it reaches them from the green of the millet farms, to the intense blue of the sea in summer.
The location of these modern facilities, so bright and European, is not the result of chance. David was always clear that to do something good, something great, it is not necessary to weigh anchor and go to a big city. "When I started I had one thing clear: what I wanted was to be here," he says. His words take us back to the beginning of the path of this company, in the failure of a house, where a workshop was started up in which he spent "hours and hours and hours". All profits were reinvested in the business and all that effort paid off: they had to make the leap to larger facilities and hire workers.
SeryPublic had decided to win over its customers by “developing the best impression”, and it seems that time has shown that it succeeded. The list of companies for which they worked grew and everything seemed to be going smoothly. But then the crisis came "and swept away the vast majority of brands for which we worked." The horizon was black. "Either we fired people or we chose the opposite path." And as always in this story, the choice was "go the other way around." It was 2007 and "the company was in very good financial health." After not being seduced by the siren songs that, during the early 2000s, came from banks, the company had no debts.
In the middle of the crisis, the business was going to take a big leap: they were going to create their own t-shirts and sell them in their own store, "the best store that could be set up", on O Preguntoiro street, in Santiago. "Everyone told me I was crazy, not to do it... But I was determined," David recalls of those times when the Nikis Galicia and La Fábrica de Nikis brands were being born. Creatures that have not stopped growing. Today, the project has two warehouses and sixteen stores, it employs more than sixty people - some 20 work in the offices and workshop in O Grove, and the rest are distributed among the different stores in Galicia - and its prestige has meant that Distega has been chosen as the official distributor of Xacobeo 2021 and 2022 products.
the big bet
To get here, the balance between roots and innovation has been essential, as well as the professionalization process that began a few years ago and that has allowed Distega, among many other achievements, to renew the world of souvenirs in Galicia. «You went to Santiago, and most of the things that were there were things that I would not buy. Why couldn't quality products be made? David Blanco tried to market them through the shops he had always used, but then nobody wanted to bet on that risky proposal that came from O Grove. He did do it and he was right: the products of La Fábrica de Nikis have become a brand that takes Galicia around the world. «Walking into any of our stores -four in Santiago and one in Sanxenxo- and seeing colleagues explain to a Japanese or a Swede what the t-shirts say, and seeing how people smile... That's what it gives meaning to everything we do.”
“Our designs are recognizable, it is not necessary to see the label”
Nikis Galicia was born with the intention of turning t-shirts and other clothing items into a channel to spread Galician culture and tradition. The designs launch our values, our way of being, into the world, using the breech and showing a deep respect for what is ours. "I always say it: here we can do our best, we don't have to go anywhere," insists David Blanco. So with respect, with restraint, and drinking from the ideas of the whole team, the designers make proposals that "are recognized". «A Niki drawing stands out, you don't need to see the label to know that it is our work». Those same designers take care of the details of the stores, the labels, the packaging... In terms of packaging, Distega has also taken a great leap, with the elimination of all the plastic from the packaging. "We saw it clearly in the stores, a couple of years ago: foreign customers do not want plastic." The decision was not long in coming; it did take a little more time to put it into practice. But it's already a reality
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