This season, eco-friendly contemporary activewear line BELOFORTE is providing you with on-trend, athleisure pieces that will surely have you feeling and looking strong, stylish, comfortable and confident throughout the Spring and into the Summer, no matter what your day entails! Cut and sewn in California by artisan sewers, BELOFORTE is devoted to manufacturing clothing that does not contribute to the industrial pollution damaging our atmosphere. Each piece is carefully produced with premium fabrics and exceptional tailoring for modern day woman who want to exude her beauty (belo) and strength (forte) through style.
“We are very proud of the steps we’ve made to ensure our supply chain is responsible. You can wear your BELO clothing knowing that it comes from a place of love.” – Founders, Whitney Quaresma and Kevin Dorey
What is the meaning of BELOFORTE?
Whitney is Portuguese and I (Kevin) always said if we could create products in her image, then we’d be successful. To me those two words (BELO = beauty and FORTE = strength in Portuguese) summed her up well. Our clothing will always be made with a strength to withstand the rigors of a tough workout, but also have a unique beauty that will be eye-catching and stylish. BELOFORTE to us represents all women…Beautiful and Strong.
How did you get in the industry?
We just sort of dove in headfirst honestly. I wear fitness apparel everyday. I know it intimately and I knew what the market had to offer. I loved what some brands were doing but I wasn’t loving what most had to offer and I wanted to make something special. I had a vision for a brand aesthetic specific to active that I felt was missing in the world. At the same time, Kev had just pursued an idea in transforming Enterprise Health and Wellness and he fell in love with the business of pursuing one’s best self through health and lifestyle choices. He was looking for the next venture, and when he heard about my design ideas, we decided to combine forces and go after building BELO together.
Do you guys do everything in California? (Manufacturing, etc.)
We do all of our garment assembly in in Los Angeles. We also try and source our fabrics from textile mills that make their fabrics in CA, however that’s not always possible. When we do source a fabric from outside of CA or the US, we make sure the mill holds up to our environmental standards.
What is different from your brand than other brands?
There are a ton of companies all making cool stuff now. As a lover of design, it’s been fun to see. A lot of brands seem to be designing virtually the same things however. Once one brand finds success with a style, more often than not, the others will follow. We really try to introduce something new to active apparel with our pieces. We look at what our competitors are doing, but we find our inspiration from high fashion designers for the most part. Our introduction of active friendly faux leather and suede along with our laser cut applications are pretty unique. Probably because it’s hard to do well!
Do you guys do anything special for Earth Day?
We aren’t doing anything special to be honest. Earth Day for us is really just a day to do an internal audit of how we try and live our lives everyday. We’ll audit ourselves as individuals and as a business. Social Media reminds us that almost everyday is a dedicated to some cause so it’s easy to forget about one and move on to the next. However, living a responsible lifestyle is a mindset. So we celebrate earth day by evaluating how our Earth Year has been?
Where did the idea come from?
I had a vision for a label that could perform at any level, while not sacrificing a bold and sexy style aesthetic. I would talk to Kev about activewear and what I wanted to wear. He has a strong business mind and an engineering background so we work well together in figuring out how to build out some of our more complex designs. Ultimately desire for things that I wanted to wear, and a desire to build a business that inspired others through fashion became a reality. We view this a vehicle to get involved with meaningful movements and a way to create beautiful things and share them with the world.
How did you guys meet?
We met about 6 years ago. We both grew up playing sports and my best friend worked with Kevin at the time. They had a work basketball team, and I grew up playing basketball so we used to play on the same team. We were teammates before we were partners.
What part of your job do you find the most challenging?
Finding time to be creative. As new business owners we don’t yet have the luxury of having a fully staffed team, so we do almost everything ourselves, and there’s a ton to do. We usually have a list of things to do, and then by noon, we’ve crossed off maybe one or two things but added about 5 more. So just finding that headspace where we are able to focus on finding our voice, or our style is really hard.
Are there any influencers that wear your products?
There are a few. We are building out a team of Ambassadors that we feel reciprocates our brands aesthetic and also our message. You’ll see a lot more from influencers and BELOFORTE in the next few months, but lately @rrayyme, @jshealth, @thebalancedblonde, @theskinnyconfidential have all worn BELO. Then we have some exciting celebrities that have BELO in their wardrobe too.
What’s next for BELOFORTE?
We are developing our second collection, which is looking great. We’re challenging ourselves again to make unique styles that stand out from the crowd. We still have work to do, but they’ll be special. We also are taking our approach with different fabrics for active to a new level so look for some cool new editions to current items coming soon. We’ll also be engaging our customers with more content, events to show the versatility of BELO and how we wear it.
Where can our readers can follow BELOFORTE?
We would encourage people to follow our social accounts.
And then also go to our website and sign up for our newsletter. You’ll get 15% off your first order and we’ll be posting some great fitness instructional episodes soon along with style shoots and tips.
