Returning local Micah Puklowski talks fashion & websites.
Tell us about your website development business and what you provide.
Here at Levels Creative Services (www.levels.co.nz) we are Shopify Experts & Creative Multipotentialites – we create beautiful, functional & affordable websites from conception to completion, with expertise, creativity & passion. We offer branding, copywriting, editing, video, graphics, marketing, photography and all aspects of social media consulting. Our aim is for our clients to love both their final project and the creative process of working together.
You are currently working with Italian fashion designer Fi Milano on a special project. Explain how she chose you to bring her vision to life.
Fi found my business Levels Creative Services on the Shopify Experts directory last October. She interviewed me over Google meet, and what was supposed to be 30mins turned into 3hrs! We felt like we had known each other for years and I was excited by her project; both creatively and ethically and we just clicked.
She understood I could see her vision and genuinely wanted to be a part of bringing her business to life, so she hired me to be her Shopify Expert and branding specialist.
What concept is she introducing and why is it so groundbreaking and important?
Fi’s ingenuity and innovation of Vylet®, a vitamin D-boosting smart fabric and the meaning behind why she started it all is something I’m proud to be a part of.
She is creating fashion with function and purpose, to help stop the waste of ‘fast fashion’ items and to help those who care about their skin, being in the sun, their health, wellbeing and fashion. Who doesn’t want to look and feel good? Fi cares about the small details as well as the larger environmental picture.
She wants to make this planet a better place for future generations, so her core values cover some of the same things we care so much about in our Raglan community and NZ at large. Being recyclable, sustainable, being handmade for a fair wage and being inclusive. (Not to mention the freedom to be who you are and express yourself with fashion.)
It’s not very often that a business I get to be a part of produces something beautiful and useful and cares about its footprint and impact on the world. As the Fi Milano website states:
“The future is not a place; it’s an attitude; become the change you want to see.”
Being someone who is very aware of covering up to protect myself from the sun but still attempts to stay stylish I see this as very clever indeed.
How have you been involved in the process?
Fi hired me to create her branding and build her ecommerce Shopify website. Our business relationship has evolved in these last 6 months and I have done more designing, marketing and social media content and am trying to help build a cohesive visual brand that will be ready for launch at the end of April. The current plan is that I will continue on to help grow the brand moving forward and look after her website as she works on the next Vylet®vActivewear collection.
Will she look to be cementing the brand in NZ and how does she intend to do so?
www.fimilano.com is a global website and will be selling all across the world, including to NZ. We are also approaching local New Zealand and Australian magazines and newspapers to help spread the word; not only because I believe in her vision and product, but because the product is something beautiful, sophisticated and smart that will add value to our lives, while still caring about the planet and how it is produced. We have a terrible rate of skin cancer in NZ and it’s so easy to get burned; this product can help reduce those in the long run.
How can people find out more about her range?
Please check out www.fimilano.com. We have a tonne of information about the products, brand and story behind it all and of course on Fi Milano social media accounts. (Instagram, Tiktok, FB, Linkedin, Twitter & YouTube.) You can sign up to join the journey for VIP access and updates here: https://www.fimilano.com/pages/join-our-journey-newsletter
Micah, you are moving back to your local community after time away. What brings you back to Rags?
My family and I missed the West Coast sunsets, the community of Raglan, and when a beautiful waterfront property became available, we knew it was time to come back for good.
I’m just lucky I live in a tiny house and can put it on my parent’s front lawn with a harbour view!
How do people get in touch ?
w: www.levels.co.nz
e: micah@levels.co.nz.
p: 022 320 1100
