Mukua was once one of our favourite brands for personalising clothes.
When the brand was launched, it brought a series of innovations to the market that were applauded by us and certainly by many other print shops in Portugal.
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The biggest innovation was undoubtedly the removable labels, and this simple detail helped an entire market of clothing brands to flourish.
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The concept was simple.
A label on the back of the neck made of paper that came off when you pulled it or when you washed it for the first time. Easy, fast.
There was a second inner label on the waistband of the garment with the information required by law. Well hidden, tidy, perfect.
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It's incredible how many clothing brands were born in Portugal after the launch of these garments and we like to believe that we had something to say at an early stage in that market. It was incredible!
Along with removable labels, they also brought one of the first label exchange processes that we know of, making it economical for anyone to exchange labels on screen-printed transfers. He was a game changer at the time and one of the people responsible for our success.
Unfortunately, a lot has changed since then for the brand.
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After a few years of instability in stock and quality, in which we almost stopped working with Mukua, the brand was sold to Velilla, which ceased to be a Portuguese brand and became Spanish.
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That's when a lot changed.
It no longer has a warehouse in Portugal (goodbye urgent deliveries in 24 hours) and has moved all its stock to Spain.
And since then (even at the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020) the brand has stopped innovating or even TRYING.
It's 2022 and we haven't seen anything new from the brand since the 2019 launch. They focused - and rightly so - on stabilising stocks and... nothing else.
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It was with a great deal of (unpleasant) surprise that we recently noticed that not only have they not launched anything new, but they've even taken a step backwards - against the market, it must be said - in the label exchange solution they launched so many years ago.
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They no longer have easily removable labels. They did away with paper labels (which fell apart after the first wash) and opted for plastic labels, just like any other brand.
At the time, it was the only thing that differentiated the brand and even that was lost.
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With no new models, no new colours and nothing to identify the brand as something different, Mukua has lost A LOT.
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It continues and will continue to be part of our promotional clothing offer, but it has definitely left the batch of brands we recommend.
