ABOUT US
We build and grow online stores for fashion brands.
We also run one.
Hapen is an agency in Kosovo.
We work with independent fashion labels, mostly in the United States, Australia and across Europe, building the stores they sell from and the brands those stores carry.
We also own a couture label of our own, which is the reason we're good at this.
How this started
Four years of selling other people's products
"I spent four years in dropshipping. I sold a lot and built nothing, no brand, no customers who came back, no name anyone would recognise a year later. That mistake is the reason this agency exists and the reason we start with brand rather than traffic.
Then I went to work with Albina Dyla, one of the largest fashion houses in Kosovo, shipping worldwide. There I did all of it: designs, sampling, production, sales, wholesale, marketing, influencer marketing, every part of the chain between an idea and a customer wearing it. I worked with an awesome team, and I learned the business properly, at scale, with real stock and real money moving.
I left to do that for smaller labels. Most independent designers can't hire a team of specialists, and most agencies have never seen the inside of a production run. Hapen exists in that gap."
— Salih Salihu, founder
Our own label
Aiyah Couture
Aiyah Couture is ours. Registered in the United States, sold there and in Australia, run entirely from Kosovo.
We design it, sample it, produce it, couture by hand, the satin prêt-à-porter line, photograph it, sell it, ship it with duties included, and pitch it to boutiques.
After four years of selling products that weren't mine, building one of my own was the point. It also means every decision I advise a client on, I've had to make myself, with my own money, and get wrong at least once.
Why Kosovo matters to you
We're in Pristina. Most of our clients aren't.
That works in your favor. Photography here costs a fraction of the same shoot in New York or Sydney.
Production for certain pieces is genuinely good and genuinely affordable.
And Kosovo has more fashion history than people expect, the country exports couture to more than a hundred countries, and the people who make it are here.
The arrangement is already proven.
The Ivy Vault is a US fur house whose first online store we built and launched from here, ahead of schedule.
Everything runs over email, calls and shared documents.
We're on Central European Time and we work around your hours for calls.
Who you'd be working with
Hapen started in June 2021 and was registered in January 2022. I do most of the work myself, which means the person you speak to on the first call is the person building your store.
For the parts that need other hands, I work with people I know and have worked with for years: photographers and models here in Kosovo, and a label that handles design and production.
It's deliberately small. You won't be passed to a junior after the sales call, and you won't wait a week for an answer because it has to go through an account manager.
How we work
Fixed prices, published.
Our prices are on the website. They're the price, not a starting point, and they don't change once we've seen your brand.
You own everything.
Stores are built in your accounts. Files, designs, domains and access are yours, handed over whenever you ask. Nothing is locked to us.
We'll tell you no.
If we can't help, or if what you need is smaller and cheaper than what you're asking for, we'll say so on the first call. We'd rather lose a project than sell one that shouldn't happen.
We don't promise what we can't control.
Ad platforms and search results move for reasons nobody controls. What we guarantee is the scope, the timeline and the price in your proposal, and a report honest enough to tell you when something isn't working.
Not a fashion brand?
Most of our work is with fashion labels, but the same team has built stores, brands and campaigns in other industries. If that's you, tell us what you're building and we'll be straight about whether we're the right fit.
Tell us what you're making.
Thirty minutes, no pitch. If we can help we'll tell you how, and what it costs.