BC Business
Owner and Creative Director
AGE: 22
COMPANY: Truvelle Bridal Ltd.
The Story: Gaby Bayona started her first business at Carver Christian High School in Burnaby: a store connected to the school kitchen selling snacks to raise money so students wouldn’t have to buy tickets to graduation. (The grad store, providing everything from fruit and muffins to instant noodle cups, is still in operation.) After high school, Bayona began working in her mother’s custom wedding dress business in New Westminster, becoming sole proprietor and helping her to set up a website, develop her own design and sewing skills, and grow annual revenues to six figures. Since the custom boutique could produce only a limited number of dresses each year, in 2013, at the age of 21, Bayona obtained a $15,000 bank loan and launched Truvelle to sell modern off-the-rack bridal gowns, each locally designed and produced. She started out marketing her gowns, priced at under $2,500, on Etsy.com, selling the first one to a Brooklyn bride who works at Marvel Comics. Today she also sells through a Gastown showroom and 18 retailers across Canada, the U.S., Australia and South Africa.
Markers of Success: Truvelle has grown from a one-woman business to a six- person operation, with a quarter-million dollars in revenues since its launch in 2013. Bayona claims to have the highest international reach of any Western Canadian bridal designer. —Felicity Stone
Meet Gaby Bayona and the rest of the 2015 30 Under 30 winners at this year’s celebration event!