Growing attention to environmental issues and sustainable consumption has led to the popularity of eco-friendly accessories and bags. The creative approach chosen by 3,14BAN involves using materials that have already been in use, updating them and giving them a second life in a new form. The bags can be waterproof and durable because they are made from banners.
Kateryna Uvarova, the founder and ideological inspirer of 3,14BAN, was born in Makiivka, Donetsk region, which has been occupied since 2014. "After 2014, I moved to Berdiansk, where I finished school. In 2016, I entered the Karazin University, Faculty of Sociology, specializing in social communications, advertising and PR. I worked in several advertising companies as a SEO specialist, SMM specialist, but then I didn't like working for someone else and decided that I would do my own thing," says Kateryna. And so, in 2019, while still a student, Kateryna came up with the idea of creating her own brand.
It all started in Kharkiv
"We used to organize various events as a practice, and after them we would leave banners that would lie in the university's storage room and no one would reuse them," Kateryna says. - "I saw this picture, and at that time I was wondering what could be made of that fabric. She found a seamstress, Olya, whom she works with to this day, brought her the banner and said: "I want to sew something, but I don't know what, and I don't know what will come of it." The fabric of the banner is quite specific - it is neither cotton nor denim, so not every seamstress was ready to take on such a job. Kateryna searched for more than 10 seamstresses, and almost all of them were afraid of damaging their machines and tools. "Olya agreed and offered to make a bag, an ordinary bag that you can take to the post office or to the store," is how 3.14BAN made its first bag, then posted it on its Facebook page, after which people became interested and the brand launched its active operations, which have been going on for 4 years.
It took the whole team to come up with the name
The 3.14BAN team consists of three people: Kateryna, a communication manager who also searches for clients for corporate orders; Olia, a seamstress who develops new models of bags and handles the entire technological process; and Yulia, an accountant who keeps records and helps generate new ideas.
For six months, the brand operated without a name, and then Kateryna decided that something had to be invented. "We came to the conclusion that it should definitely be Ban, because it's banners in the name, but we also wanted to add a concept, and since we still have an accountant in the team, she suggested the number π, the number of infinity," Kateryna recalls, "events happen every day, every month, and banners continue to be made - this process is endless. And then the team realized that the ban in the title is also a ban on garbage, a call not to throw away a resource that can be reused. No wonder, because 3.14BAN is about conscious consumption and the need to give a second life to things that you didn't even think about giving. It is also about creative thinking.
With the onset of a full-scale war, the brand lost its workshop, people moved away, but eventually the work continued, the team found a rented room with machines and resumed work again. In addition, they also relocated and are now located in two cities: Kharkiv and Lviv. In December, the "corporate people" woke up and PIBAN started making corporate merchandise, new products, new models, as Kateryna said: "We didn't stop, we didn't go abroad, we didn't abandon our business so that people could see that we were working. We also found new stores in terms of expansion, and people started buying our products. The main thing is not to stop, just to do, to develop, to invent something new and to show people that we are not dead."
Garbage cannot cost more than UAH 50
At the stage of founding the brand, there were various difficulties both in the sewing business and in society. Kateryna explains: "At that time, people did not understand the idea of recycling and giving a second life to this resource. But we listened and continued to do our work." After that, we decided to join large companies that had environmental and social entrepreneurship policies in their corporate rules, and then we started working more actively. At first, 3.14BAN targeted people related to the environment, those who sort and support the Zero Waste story, then they added another audience - "creatives looking for the unique," as Kateryna calls them - people who choose unique products, not mass-market clothes and look for their own, and the third is corporate orders, large companies focused on maintaining environmental awareness in the company. It also happens that people come to us for orders themselves. Kateryna shared one such story: "A girl in her 30s came to us in 2020 or 2021, brought her tailor's hat with which she goes to the market, but it's inconvenient because of the rain and slush, and she doesn't like the hat. So we designed a banner dressmaker for her, and the girl then sent us photos and shared them on Facebook. It turned out to be a really functional product." There is a story behind each of these products: once a guy brought a banner from a friend's wedding.
We will continue to do what we are best at
3.14BAN is still actively continuing its work. They recently made a cloak out of a banner. Kateryna says: "It's a new level from the history of accessories to the history of clothing and it's a new challenge because no one in Ukraine has ever made clothes from a fabric like a banner." It's also very stylish and creative. "We plan to continue experimenting with clothing elements, and for corporate orders we have planned to develop a new product - notebooks with a banner cover and recycled paper sheets," says Kateryna, "and of course, not to stop and continue doing what we do best.
