Failing her HAVO diploma, homesick in Amsterdam and almost ending up in a burnout. After much trial and error, Fardou de Jong (28) has made her dream come true. On Saturday she opened her store at Naauw in Leeuwarden.
Anyone who enters the Plek Conceptstore enters a world full of color. The walls, ceiling and many of the products are pink. The tiles on the wall in front of the cash register are glittering gold. “It was a lot of work. We painted all this. Everything is in a certain style,” says De Jong. “The store is a reflection of who I am.”
De Jong always wanted to work in the fashion industry. “In high school I already had the idea of starting my own business. At the same time I also had the normal image in my head. I’ll get that piece of paper and then I’ll just go and study in Groningen just like my friends.”
Homesick for Leeuwarden
That turned out differently. De Jong did not obtain her HAVO. “Either I wasn’t at school or I was chatting backwards in class. The night before I always had to ask: ‘What was the homework again?’” De Jong laughs. “I had a lot of fun at school, but I didn’t see the point of much of it. I knew I wanted to work on clothes. Why do I care about a history lesson?”
De Jong started a secondary vocational education in fashion. “Wonderfully practical. During my internship I learned how real life works.” She moved to Amsterdam for her internship and work.
After a year the capital became too much for her. “As an intern, I worked very hard. It was a dream to work at such a large fashion company. But I worked very long weeks, it was difficult to build a new social life. I became very homesick for Leeuwarden.”
‘I could no longer enjoy small things’
And so De Jong returned. After a few jobs outside fashion, she managed to find work in her passion again. “But that was so disappointing. The atmosphere at work was very bad. I was always working on it. If it was the weekend, I would be very happy on Friday evening. But on Sunday I got a stomach ache because I had to work again on Monday. It made me very unhappy, I was completely exhausted. Even small things, like unloading the dishwasher at home, were too much for me. I could no longer enjoy nice things.”
After her dismissal, De Jong started what she has always wanted: her own store. “Even though my self-confidence had been knocked by that job, I dared to do this. I knew this so sure.” It started with a webshop, Plek Conceptstore in June 2020. “During the lockdown I suddenly had a lot of time. There were no social things. So I thought: I’ve wanted this for so long, let’s see if I really like it.”
“Does anyone know this person?”
In the beginning, only family and friends managed to find the webshop. “The very first time I had an order from a stranger, I thought it was so special. I asked in the family app: ‘Does anyone know this person?’”
The webshop grew quickly. Plek Conceptstore was popular on social media. “Our target group is there, so we focus on that,” says De Jong. “It’s very personal on Instagram. I am in the picture a lot. We receive a lot of questions, also about products not from our store. ‘Where is your blouse from?’”
“I feel like I’ve known you for a long time.”
The popularity on Instagram also has a downside. “I sometimes get messages: ‘I saw you walking in the supermarket’. I was recently approached at Oerol on Terschelling. Then you feel watched. They know a lot about you. I’m not even aware of that until they refer to it in the store. At the same time, that personal aspect is also what works and what I really like. People come into the store and say, ‘I feel like I’ve known you for a long time.’ Instagram does that.”
De Jong opened a shop in the Blokhuispoort, but the space soon became too small. “I couldn’t turn my back there. I wanted more. But I also tried to restrain myself, to keep taking small steps.”
‘They saw me coming’
De Jong told everyone who came by that she was looking for a new property and started talking to real estate agents. “I found it difficult with real estate agents. I didn’t feel taken seriously. They saw me coming: a young, blonde girl. I could almost see them thinking: ‘here’s another one who wants to start his own shop. Next’. ”
But asking around worked. “I got a call from the store that used to be here. House of colour. I thought: are you joking? We knew each other by name, but had no contact. I think it’s fantastic that entrepreneurs grant each other this.”
2023-10-07 16:52:00
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