Kyra Buil

Kyra Buil is very young when she figures out exactly what she wants. As a little girl from the age of 5 you couldn’t get it out of her head. Kyra went all the way. The Dutch motto ‘where there is will, there is a way’ fits her perfectly.

With a doll under her arm, high heels on her feet, and sitting on her little pink bike she would go on as long as it would take to accomplish. Funny to see for a lot of grown-ups. However, Kyra got attached to her passion and it would have to work! Also in a creative way. She could perform fashion shows with her dolls for hours and make creative handicrafts. Kyra really came up and realized truly beautiful things. That was when the creativity was already there.

Musical outfit

For the musical at primary school she designed her own Jane-outfit. Every school break she would work on the suit with the result of turning up as a true Jane on stage. When looking back, this Jane-outfit can be seen as her first design. Kyra was a sunshine on stage during the musical.

Reading and writing was not her strongest point, but if you could say one thing about Kyra it is that she is sparkling with creativity.

An artsy high school

Kyra was attending an artsy high school (IVKO in Amsterdam) and was in that period already an ambitious student. Drama, dance, mime, spatial expression…. Kyra enjoyed every bit of it. In the time after graduating for Mavo, there wasn’t a lot of choice in creative MBO studies. That is why Kyra decided, when she was 17, to start the sport education, since she enjoyed sporting a lot. After half a year at the CIOS in Haarlem she started to miss her creativity that much that she decided to quit the study. She started to think: If this is not it, what would be? Kyra had so many good ideas and next to her education she started to come up with her own clothing line. Also, she decided to finish her education, because ‘what you start, you finish’, that is how it works with Kyra.

After successfully ending her sport study, there was only one more option for Kyra. Finally starting the education she really wanted to do. It became Fashion in Gent, Belgium. Why in Gent? Kyra had found her love in Belgium during some snowboard classes she gave in France. She actually only wanted to live in Belgium if she could perform her big passion for Fashion. Luckily, that opportunity existed.

The Art Academy in Gent

For the Art Academy in Gent she made a full-on project. Kyra designed her own clothes. She arranged a photoshoot, make-up artist, the clothes…..all by herself. She made a beautiful book about it. Sadly enough, she did not get accepted at the Art Academy, because she already wanted too much. They told her she was still too girly. Next to that, Marina J., from the Antwerp 6, told her to smoke a joint once. At that moment all of Kyra’s dreams were blown away. But giving up is never an option. There was a second option, Fashion Technology. So Kyra applied for this education, however this was a big challenge. She did so many cool things at the education, however the education also existed out of a lot of technique. Learn sewing machines by heart and chemistry. And still Kyra did not do what she wanted most. But what was that? Designing….

During the summer holiday she worked at Q-music, the beach bar. For the ‘end-of-the-season party’ she organised her first fashion show with her collection Kyriaki, a clothing line for young women. 80 people came to her show.

When Kyra was 21 she travelled all alone to Berlin to go to Bread & Butter to get some inspiration. Not long after that China followed to start the production for the company Kyriaki, what Kyra started with her sister to do what she loved the most. Work with her creativity!

Sadly enough Kyra had to learn a tough lesson. You should walk next to you family and not trade with them. Because of that she had to begin all over again and started working at a second hand shop. Kyra couldn’t drop her dream of having her own clothing line. Nog a day or night passed without her thinking about it. She thought that through some acquaintances she could get the phone number of Eleonora Nieuwenhuizen from Mim-pi. She took the chance and called her.

‘Hi, this is Kyra, I am designing kids clothes’

The result? She got invited for a cup of tea in Bergen, because Eleonora loves people with a drive. After that Kyra got a proposal: Kyra at Mim-pi collection. Eleonora finally decided to not put through the idea, however it was Kyra her first step to her own brand ByKyra. She did this for 5 years with the result that she sold her collection in 17 shops within the first season. Later it even became 32 shops, whereof some were located in Germany, Belgium and even the USA. Next to that, she had a cool pop-up store and some great events. She put up a crowdfunding campaign and soon she knew to convince quite some investors. She again travelled all alone, but this time to India and Portugal for the production. She did all this with non-stop energy. She started to supervise interns for their fashion education and did more and more. Until the production company in India did not accept the amount of orders and was coping with a lot of pressure. This was almost the death of ByKyra, but it luckily survived. The Indian company stated that they would only process one more time and then stop. Kyra decided to travel to India to talk to a new party. After scheduling the right appointments and talking about how to do all of it, it did go wrong. The company she cooperated with seemed to be scammers. All of Kyra’s hard work done with love, passion and a lot of energy went downhill very quickly. Kyra had no choice but to let go of her dream she had since she was 17. This was hard for her, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

From a success back to the beginning. No money for food or a place to live, but sweet family and friends gave her a warm bath and after a good burn-out she got back up again. Kyra did anything to survive. Cleaning, working in the hospitality industry and doing some freelance styling tasks. Suddenly her sport education came up when she went to the snow for an escape of 2 months and taught snowboarding and skiing. 2 months became 4 and she finally moved to Austria. Realization came through her energetic personality which functions way better in fresh nature where she could find her peace. What a liberation! Nature, sporting, people and fashion all came together in her creative brain which started to work again. After a long time she had energy again and her friends definitely saw some change. In summer she works as a rafting guide and in the winter as snowboard and skiing teacher. But the creativity is still alive and fashion will always be her love and passion. That’s were her new ideas came from.

‘But Kyra you can’t do everything, right? Yes you can…! When I start a blog about fashion, travelling and sports, I can combine all of it. My love for people, fashion, travelling and sports. Helping other people but also feel happy yourself. Switching dreams to reality.’

www.kyrabuil.com the blog about fashion, travelling and sports has started. It’s been in her head for a while already. She started writing, but her fear was strong, since she is dyslectic. During a meeting in Porto for the fashion bourse Motissimo she met some special people. Some she could help with her experience, some she shared her story with and they told her: ‘KYRA DO IT! We laugh about your stories all the time, share it…..’ Kyra decided to go for it and in the first week she made some nice deals with beautiful companies in Porto. Kyra supported people and says: Dream, Dare, Do!

As a small kid people don’t punish you for when you can’t walk right away. Life is falling and getting back up again. When you make mistakes, you can only use them to get better. Improve and get yourself and your fellows up to a higher level.

DON’T GROW UP IT’S A TRAP!