People often ask why the brand isn't called Taya Younan. The honest answer is that I never wanted it to be about me. I wanted the name to say what the clothes stand for, and to sound like a place where things are made.
Ethos is a Greek word. Its oldest meaning is a familiar place, the home and surroundings you belong to. Over time it came to mean the shared customs of a community, and then character: the spirit and values that guide how a person, or a people, live and work. That was the starting point. Before I had a single sample, I knew I wanted to build a brand that made fewer things, made them well, and was honest about how they were made.
Studio came from my own background. I studied fashion design at Marangoni in Milan, graduating in 2017, and then spent years working in graphic design in Rome. A studio is where I have always felt most myself: a table, fabric, sketches, and the freedom to rework an idea until it's right. I wanted the name to feel like that room.
There is also a quiet joke in it. My surname, Younan, means Greece in Arabic. Ethos is a Greek word. So in a way, my name is in there after all, just hidden where only a few people would look. I grew up in Cairo, I trained in Milan, I built the brand in Italy, and somehow the name ended up connecting all three.
Where it really began
The idea started during lockdown in Rome, on my balcony, in May. The sky and the river were cleaner than I had ever seen them, and it made me think hard about what I wanted to put into the world.
That moment stayed with me. A friend mentioned she was studying sustainability, and it gave me a word for what I'd felt on the balcony. I went back to studying while working at my graphic design job, and started to see the clothes I'd always loved differently: who made them, how much was made, and what happened to what didn't sell. I went looking for the kind of resort wear I wanted to wear myself, and couldn't find it made the way I now cared about, at a fair price. So in May 2023 I started researching, planning and designing my own pieces, privately.
I kept it secret for about six months. Then, over Christmas 2023, I told my family. Making clothes has always been part of us. My grandmother sewed for the whole family, and she cut the train of her wedding gown into baptism dresses for my mother and my aunt, and later for my sister and me. My mother and I designed my occasion outfits together when I was a girl, choosing fabric side by side. So telling them felt less like announcing a business and more like continuing something.
What the name asks of me
I launched the first collection in 2024, while still working at my design job. The first thing I wore out was the black Laura set, to dinner. In January 2025 I went full-time on The Ethos Studio, and it is the best decision I've ever made.
A name like Ethos is a promise you have to keep every day. It's why we work with small Italian manufacturers, produce in small batches, and are a women-led team. It's also why I'm starting these notes: to show you how the clothes are made, and by whom.
Welcome to the studio.
Taya
