Evelien Emondts & Merel Groenenboom

Evelien Emondts & Merel Groenenboom

We’ve always been the busy entrepreneurial types. Not ambitious in everything we do, but if it makes sense and we believe in something we will for sure at least try to make it work. Which has resulted in many on the side projects, and illustrates how we went through university where we met during our studies Communication Sciences. Not a study everyone finds that interesting, but we got the best out of it in different ways. And it brought us into a world where we started learning about creative communication, branding, strategy. We learned the impact of words and images. During these years we went abroad a lot, which made us start a lifestyle & travel blog. Our first own platform. This blog was a serious project, but always meant as a hobby. At a certain point we decided we wanted more, that we wanted to start our own offline business. Of course we would do so together, there was no doubt about that. And so grew the idea for kiyoko, actually also while we were abroad. A new project, with a Japanese name that refers to how it started: while traveling (Japan being highest on our wishlist).

Lifestyle: kiyoko

kiyoko is a lifestyle brand that represents purity and design. we started with a lip balm, and recently released a sweater. Both 100% organic, with a minimalistic design – those are our 2 standards: good quality and design. We don’t know how to make a lip balm nor a sweater, so we had the help of experts. We do know how to brand, which comes in handy. But in the end kiyoko is very personal and so is the branding. What you see is our creation, not a commercial brand. Our only drive is our vision to always make plans work – or at least try.