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

Noelia, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Everything started when I was a little kid, passionate about fashion, modeling, project runway and picking my own outfits, then life happened and I ended up modeling in my hometown and studying Exterior Commerce. Both things became my passion and sometimes the things we love guide us to new opportunities and doors we haven’t considered. In 2020 the pandemic hit the world and everyone was locked up at home, so were my family and I. I almost finished my career online, boredom hits us and we decided to clean up our closets and drawers. Just imagine; three generations in my house… so many clothes that were used barely once in their lifetime, as we cleaned up we realized that those garments were ready to be with someone new and start a second life. As I child I took sewing classes so this was a perfect opportunity to put in work everything that I learned so I repaired, cleaned and disinfect everything so it was secure to our customers getting the garments and wearing them without the fear of getting COVID-19 or something that everyone relates the second hand clothing or thrifted to. It took me a few days to decide the name of the clothing store, I only knew that I wanted something to keep it familiar and embrace the origins of the clothes so I thought of “La Dinastía Bazar” that translates to “Dynasty’s Bazar”, to keep in mind that our clothes is from a variety of generations and they could last a few generations more… if you love them enough.
We launched on Facebook and Instagram a few days before Christmas, honestly I was so nervous and afraid of failure and getting forgotten by… so many emotions before uploading all those garments, when it was the time of getting everything on social media I didn’t know who it was, the universe or anything you believe in, but everything went sold out, every single garment, our clients took those clothes home as presents, Christmas outfits and more. We keep it that way, uploading pictures every 2-3 weeks a new collection, delivering in our hometown, searching in my family’s closet to keep our merch updated and keeping in mind that we were getting into a business that started to demand us more sizes and styles, leading us to search in more places to keep our customers happy and being loyal in our beliefs. So that’s how my business started, and everything that was earned helped to pay for my career and later on my degree as an exterior commerce and customs graduate.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Noelia Borbon, a graduate in Exterior Commerce and Customs, CEO of La Dinastia Bazar, a second hand clothing store from Nogales, Sonora, México that pursues the idea of slow fashion, giving a second life to clothes and being responsibles by our ecological footprint. We started as a family business and now we dress you. In my business every garment is repaired, disinfected, washed and labeled to look like new but keeping and paying respect to their story. Our prices are friendly to the local economy and our clients support us, nowaday we have a thrift shop where in every sale a new life starts to our merch. I’m more than proud when I talk about my business cause something that someone could relate to trash it’s more than that, to me, it means being able to get independent economically, make a difference in this world where trends and fast fashion reigns and motivate someone whos looking to move forward and has no idea how to start.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

La Dinastia Bazar started as an Ecommerce business on social media. We wanted to be closer to our customers and be known by more people but we couldn’t find a place to sell. My house is away from main streets and there’s barely a few pedestrians passing by, as everything earned was for my school supplies and paying my degree. I didn’t have the capital for paying rent and getting a fancy location to be in. My grandmother borrowed me her house for a weekend… and I didn’t sell anything just got a dehydration hahaha just joking, later on, my best friend who has a women clothing store told me that I could use his garage to sell and he could lend me some racks and mobiliary to put all my things and sell on the main street. I started with a table and one clothing rack and somehow that meant a lot to me. Every weekend I went to his house and with his help, my boyfriends and parents we put everything together, carrying everything back home at closing time. It was like that for almost 2 years, no matter the weather I was out under a tent with many dreams in my pockets. It helped me to get to know a lot of different client types, how to handle them, the danger of being a woman selling by the street and controlling my emotions in the no-sale days. The time passed by and once I graduated the money I got had a new purpose so I started looking for locations . We went to see a few but every single one got taken until I signed up for the waiting list on a local flea market that’s very crowded and gettin in there is pretty difficult. In April 2023 they gave me my place, so officially we had a La Dinastia Bazar store. By the next few months, I started to took some courses and certifications so that would help to back up my business, by now we have a certificate by Eller Economics Development Program Business Certificate provided by the University of Arizona and the US Consulate, who leaded us to took the course and being certificated by the Academy for Women Entrepreneur where we won the first place in the local pitches competition and represented Nogales, Sonora and Sonora’s North in the national competition. And by the time of writing this interview we accomplished another one; Leadership’s Certification of Ex- Alumni Fellowship by U.S. Consulate in Nogales, Sonora. We’re not showing off, I just want to tell you dear reader, that you can make a lot of things if you keep preparing yourself. We can learn new things everyday and by learning it will help growth as a business owner but most important as a human, take those opportunities. You don’t know the wonderful things that are unleashed when you start believing in yourself.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Being loyal to our beliefs, we don’t hesitate in what we believe and fought for, it’s important to keep our business clear in those things, yes, we are a second hand business with that extra but we are conscious that our prices needs to be abordable even if we put a lot of manpower behind the scenes and the truth is when we keep it like that; pretty, cheap and ready to wear the customers are always grateful to us by understanding what they want and how they want it.
Another thing that helps us is that we do not believe in bad bargaining. For years we have seen how people want to get something good at a really low price, ignoring all the effort behind that garment, product, etc. We truly respect our prices, and yes, we have final sales, discounts and even a clearance spot, but it’s important to educate the clientele and it doesn’t matter if some articles don’t get sold immediately , there’s no need to worry, one day someone who truly appreciates the item will buy it, regardless of the price, and by saying this we’re talking about prices between $10 MXN to our most expensive in some seasons $500 MXN, if you convert them in US Dollars you will see that we keep it cheap but with a good twist.
And last but not least, we believe that it’s important to make the customer feel welcome and well treated in our store, we love to say: “Hello, good morning!”, “How can we help you today?”Being educated is something important, the greetings always took the new customers by surprise because they just didn’t expect it or they just are not used to it. So please, say hello and goodbye to your customers, you can add something like “Have a nice day!” At the end of the sale, you don’t know if your attitude would help them to have a better day. To me, it is an exchange of value. You treat them well, they buy, you appreciate their purchase and they will come back.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: ladinastiabazar
• Facebook: La Dinastía Bazar
• Other: Tiktok: @ladinastiabazar

Image Credits

Photoshoot in La Dinastía Bazar; Fernando Valdez.