We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Niko Kokkinos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Niko , appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Creating a clothing brand has always been something that I had passion for, but I didn’t have a clear image of what I wanted the concept to be focused on. I slowly started working with the idea of my cultural background of being Greek. I created the concept of Modern Lusso through my eyes as being first generation born in America. It inspired me to build a brand with inspiration of my heritage. Summers in Greece as a child, and being apart of the Greek American community was important to me to showcase what Greece has to offer to the world. Our products are designed, sourced and made in Greece with organic materials. This was something very important to me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have always been interested in design and creating new concepts- this slowly transitioned to my love for fashion and the retail industry. It’s not just clothing, it’s a creating art and a lifestyle for the wearer.

I have created my brand, Modern Lusso to express my personal style with a mixture of heritage. . It was important for me to showcase my version of the Greek style and what Greece offers to world. In 2018 I lived in Athens,GR and was in the developmental stages of my clothing brand. It was fun, but very tough. Designing, meetings, material, all these things were happening at all hours of the day and I was 7hrs ahead from USA. Learning how business is done in Greece, and tying to implement my USA business sense wasn’t easy, but I was able to overcome and made it happen. Fast forward to the end of 2019- I was getting ready for my first showcase to sell my brand wholesale and bring it to life at an Athens-based trade show, Andydote. January 2020, COVID the show was canceled and I wasn’t able to show all my hard work or get into any of the stores that I was looking to meet at the show. The brand was at a full stop until I could figure out what to do.

Summer 2020- I bring my clothing brand to USA and started to showcase to friends and family. Very slow exposure, but it was good! In 2021 I opened my first Pop-up experience in Georgetown community in Washington, DC. It was about 6.5months and really was an awesome experience!

Currently we are offering smaller pop-up event and online shopping experiences!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social Media is so interesting- We have found that offering engaging posts and awesome information based reels has really helped to grow our audience. This is something that we continue to do and offer to our followers!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I am always so excited to hear from people about their experiences with Modern Lusso and how they perceive the garments and lifestyle of Modern Lusso   

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shopmodernlusso.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shop_modernlusso/?next=%2F

Image Credits
Drawn to the Image – Patrick McNamara