We recently connected with Camila English and have shared our conversation below.

Camila, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

The name TimePunk Pet Photography was a long time in the making. I had to understand myself and why photography was fundamentally important to me before I could come up with a business name that really reflected me. As a mother-daughter team, when choosing our company name, our goal was to stand out uniquely, ensuring that our business would be easily discoverable through online searches. We envisioned a name that would pay tribute to both our individual passions and commitment to the entrepreneurial journey ahead. Considering that my mom’s name is Sylvia and mine is Camila, we explored various combinations before ultimately settling on the distinctive and meaningful name ‘Sylca.’ This choice encapsulates the fusion of our names and symbolizes the shared dedication we bring to our venture.

Camila, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

THE LOVE OF GREAT DESIGN has always been a part of our Sylca story. This journey to design began when my mom and her dad owned a small construction supply company in Colombia, South America. With the aspiration to help create a feeling of comfort with luxury — blending the practical with the desirable — Sylvia drew on her creativity to help home builders design and decorate living spaces that evoked emotion within their model homes. After moving to the United States, her love for fashion and accessories took over as she began the next step of the journey working for a variety of designers as a sales rep. Her keen eye for trends, great color, and unique design blossomed the idea to start Sylca. When I (Camila) was finishing college my mom knew she wanted to start her own brand of fashion accessories, but wanted to do it with me as my entire life I have had an entrepreneurial spirit, and share the love for art and design. What better way to start a business than blending the experience that she had with the youth and new era knowledge that I had.

SYLCA DESIGNS NOW
We draw our inspiration for our collections from the natural elements around us to create geometric patterns and unique shape. Each collection is curated in the US and then brought to life by our artisans in the Philippines and Thailand.

Our Jewelry is carefully handcrafted using natural elements such as wood, and shell, plus complementary elements of hand molded resin, to bring the design together. We choose materials that are easy to work with and can be molded and shaped into the unique pieces that make up our unique collection. Our Art-to-wear clothing is hand-painted, hand-decorated, and sewn in Thailand. Combined together, bold color variations and texture truly empower the wearer to feel beautiful, confident and create their own style.

There are two things that I would consider being most proud of. 1 – We started Sylca Designs with one vision: to empower women to feel fashionable, beautiful and, most importantly, confident. I love receiving the weekly emails or reviews of our customers telling us how many compliments they get when they wear Sylca. We all know how a compliment can increase your self esteem and make you feel great.
2- I love that we have been able to create a platform that allows us to give back! We work with Kiva and donate to help women in need. We specifically pick women in philippines since that is where the bulk of our jewelry is made. We also run months when we donate 10% of sales to a charity of our choice. For example in October we run cancer awareness month. My dad is a cancer survival and having a platform that allows us to raise money towards cancer research has been a dream. Lastly a few months ago we implemented a new initiative where with every online order we plant a tree, rescue a water bottle, and offset 1kg of co2.

What sets us apart from other fashion brands I would say is our customer service. My mom and I are still involved in every aspect of the business. We are a small team of 8 and I still answer the emails myself. We have a phone # where you can call and actually speak to a real person. We have values that sooo many larger companies lack.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I loved the book Girl Boss. The quote here that I live by is “It’s the age-old concept of like attracts like, or the law of attraction. You get back what you put out, so you might as well think positively, focus on visualizing what you want instead of getting distracted by what you don’t want, and send the universe your good intentions so that it can send them right back.”

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for us has been facebook ads. It look us a while to get to a point where we could afford it. For a while we were flushing money down the drain because we had no idea what we were doing. We finally had the budget and found a marketing company 5 years ago that has implemented a facebook ad strategy and that is where we get most of our new customers.

Also don’t ever forget about the power of word of mouth. Especially when you are starting and have very limited budget.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sylcadesigns.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/sylcadesigns
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/sylcadesigns