We are passionate about local design and furniture manufacturing initiatives and wanted to learn the story behind Atelier Mustață, a handmade furniture brand that produces personalized armchairs.
Open GalleryBehind the project is Ciprian Andrei, a Law graduate who worked in advertising for 15 years and then decided to open his own business.
The idea came to him in 2015 when he was looking for furniture to furnish his own apartment and realized that he could turn to the Scandinavian retailer present on the Romanian market, Chinese products (worthless copies of designer pieces), or imported furniture with prohibitive prices.
He understood that there was a need for more design pieces made in Romania, which coincided with the decision to start a startup on his own.
Ciprian Andrei looked for an indigenous name for his project and settled on Atelier Mustață, a name that honors his great-grandfather, a carpenter by trade. The only photograph he has of him shows a thin man with a large mustache and hat.
The first product made was the Octav Armchair. Atelier Mustață furniture pieces are 100% handmade and produced from scratch in workshops in Bucharest. For the wooden ones (Lena and Octav), the frame is made in a carpentry workshop, then sent to the upholstery workshop.
For the steel armchair, the frames are first worked on in a metalworking workshop, then sent to an electrostatic painting workshop. Subsequently, the seat is made in a leather goods workshop. All processes are carried out manually, and the final products look impeccable.
The main raw material is indigenous: ash/fir wood and steel are 100% Romanian. Ciprian Andrei told us that "I want to work with Romanian raw materials because they are of high quality and it is good to process the raw material here in Romania, not export it, as happens with timber for example, and then import chairs. It is healthy to have production here. Because we can.
Leather, for example, is imported (the leather industry in Romania collapsed a long time ago, just like textiles are imported for the same reason).
