What is Dear Johny?
An independent digital platform that brings together European brands with a story. Not a webshop, not a magazine but a place to briefly get to know a brand before you buy. From small ateliers to established icons to family businesses, in interior, food or lifestyle, always with European roots.

Who's behind Dear Johny?
I'm 42. Mother of two sons. Married to a French packaging designer. Fifteen years in fashion and e-commerce took me through apartments in Ghent, Valencia, Paris. Now I live in a small village at the foot of the Kemmelberg, in Belgium. Dear Johny sits at that crossing point: international experience & local life. A digital project built from both.

What inspired you to start your platform?
I spent years watching brands struggle to get noticed outside their own circle. Smaller brands especially. Attention is short. Marketing is expensive. Even established names, well known at home, hit a ceiling when they try to grow across Europe.

Buyers are flooded with choice. Price wins, most of the time. Of course  price matters but some people want to look past it. Dear Johny is built for them. I look for brands with a clear point of view. I group them by theme, write a short fiche for each, then send you straight to the brand's own shop.

How has your platform adapted to the changing consumer and the changing (online) retail landscape?
The platform is only weeks old, so I can't talk about adjustments yet. What I can say: today's climate shaped it from day one. Import tariffs. Pressure on logistics. Pushback against ultra-fast fashion. These are the forces behind how I built this.

I don't judge how things are made. I work with what brands choose to share. Maybe all I hope for is a clearer view of the strong brands coming out of our regions, so we can support our local European economy. Paying attention to makers closer to home pays off for all of us, eventually.

What makes it different?
I'm not sure yet (laughs). I don't know if something like this exists elsewhere. Every fiche is built on a technical structure meant to grow over time in Google, in AI search. I choose brands built to last more than one season. I mix sectors, price points, styles. I look past the obvious names.

What challenges have you faced as a self-employed entrepreneur?
Building this myself meant hours of tutorials and conversations with developers. The legal side had its own puzzle. Digital regulation shifts from one European country to the next and I needed an approach that holds up everywhere.

What small action had a big impact on your business this past year?
The platform launched this summer. But brands from Greece and Sweden reached out on their own, right after launch. No media budget behind it. That's the kind of signal that keeps you going.

My advice to other founders?
Be willing to say you don't know. It opens doors faster than pretending you have it all figured out.

Septembre 2026, translated from https://modeunie.be/in-de-kijker-ulrike-casier-dear-johny/