Ever since we were kids, we kept hearing it from everyone around us: in Romania, nothing works, everything goes wrong, and the Romanian is doomed to mediocrity. For a long time, I myself believed that Romanians dressed only from the mall — in petroleum, plastic, and synthetics. The story that follows is meant to deliver a clear message: you always have alternatives! Two brothers, two worlds, and one single dream: to make men more beautiful. This article is about how one brother’s imagination and the other’s balance gave birth to a unique brand on the market: ZAVATE. Because first impressions really do matter.
I first met the Zavate brothers in the autumn of 2019. Back then, they were still at the dawn of their careers. Their presence struck me like a spectacle of light and color. Radu Zavate is the rebel child of the duo… He sketches, he shapes, he pirouettes through fabrics… An Architecture graduate, he didn’t stop at drawing up buildings. For him, clothing is to men what façades are to walls — and so he chose the unbeaten path: to practice architecture directly on the male body! No, he’s not a stylist. Radu is something much more than that: he’s an armorer. He understood that for the urban man, his suit is his weapon. Radu provides the creative spark, and when the client suggests, Radu delivers. With an obsession for doing things right, for him no sartorial fantasy knows limits or obstacles. He is living proof that a fiery spirit and an architect’s pencil can turn geometry into art.
If Radu is the restless artist, then Silviu Zavate is his rational counterpart. “One is the heart, the other the brain,” they like to joke. Ambitious yet steady, entrepreneurial yet calculated, Silviu saw that his brother’s flashes of inspiration could take solid shape in a coherent, targeted business. A telecommunications engineer, entrepreneur by vocation, and economics enthusiast, he founded a telecom start-up in Romania before even turning 24. Today, at 36, he can say he’s a fulfilled man. “– But Silviu,” I asked him once at their showroom, “what does telecom have to do with the world of clothes?” “– In both cases,” he replied, “the principle is the same: keep the client satisfied. The only contribution people expect from you is value, no matter what you do. That’s why, at ZAVATE, the relationship with our clients remains crucial. That’s the very foundation of premium tailoring.” And I couldn’t argue with that.
Founded in 2017 as a bespoke tailoring atelier — back when the Romanian client was still taking hesitant steps toward sartorial education (which at the time seemed like entrepreneurial courage bordering on recklessness) — the brand nonetheless grew, in just a few short years, into a superlative of its field. Today, ZAVATE offers a wide range of fabrics, patterns, and finishes. With them, they create suits, coats, and shirts that inspire elegance, class, and masculine refinement. Recently, they’ve added jackets, sneakers, and jeans to their catalog — a step that brings Radu and Silviu’s dream to the next level. What began seven years ago as a luxury tailoring atelier now stands before the Romanian man as a complete menswear brand.
