History

The brand SMK was born in 1991 with two partners that were reselling many different brands of jeans. They felt it was time to create their own prototypes and their own brand image. The brand initiated by creating only two different prototypes: 201 and 018 which were commercialized for five years without making any alterations.

Both prototypes were style inspired in that era. These prototypes were washes with a stone was, which gave the jeans an aged look with different blue shades.

In 1996 the company changed their selling strategy by opening their first showroom to resell to multi-brand stores. Simultaneously, the brand started to create a diversify number of prototype jeans.

It was only in 1998 when the first prototypes of T-shirts and sweats started to appear.

During the next three years, little by little, various types of items were introduced in the collection; items like for example: jerseys, blouses, jackets, coats, shoes and accessories.

The company’s first designation was registered as Simarkel, which was changed to the more obvious initials SMK. This was changed due to the resonance and image of the brand in November 2003.

It was also at this time, because of the changes of the market, that the brand felt it was time to promote its differential image to the consumer.

It started with the release of catalogues and displays while simultaneously preparing to launch the brand on-line. This happened in 2005 inaugurating the site www.smk.pt. The site was born and immediately had a strong and rebellious image, just like its brand.

The site, as the brand has been growing and has been accompanying the necessities of time and fashion. With this, the brand saw the need to appear in the mass Medias. This happened, in the same year as the launch of the site, by collaborating with magazines related to the night world which created a connection with the public target of the brand.
Subsequently, there was some appearances in other periodic national magazines.

SMK has the preoccupation in having not only high quality in its collections but also in the image that it presents to the consumer.

Currently, the brand is found in various multi-brand stores all over Portugal and islands and also in some international stores like in Spain, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Angola. SMK also has its own stores where we can find the whole collection.

The first official store was inaugurated in December 2008 in Vila Nova de Gaia at the renewed Arrábida Shopping. A year later, on the 3rd of November 2009 a second official store was inaugurated at the new Espaço Guimarães. Afterwards, a third store was opened, this one being an Outlet in The Style Outlets in Vila de Conde, inaugurated on the 3rd of December 2009.

Going forward a couple of years, in 2012 SMK launched its spring/summer collection with the theme Evolution. With this theme SMK introduced to the market its first children (boy) collection. And as we make Evolution an obligation, we made our 1st franchising in Spain, precisely at Shopping Max Center in the city of Bilbao having followed that with the opening of a 2nd franchising in S. João da Madeira at Shopping 8ª Avenida.

With time, it was clear that the brand needed to open itself to the world which it did with the launch of an online store, making the products available worldwide.

More recently, SMK adopted a new store concept having completely remodeled the store at Espaço Guimarães, resulting in a bigger, entirely renovated space. The same store concept was applied in the latest store, which opened on 16th of March 2016 in Braga at Shopping Nova Arcada.

More news coming soon...