Karin Rojas ’12, who grew up knitting and crocheting in Peru, became the talk of her Virginia Beach neighborhood in 2018 after she reupholstered the seats of her 1994 Isuzu Amigo in black and yellow leather.
She found a job at an upholstery store to improve her skills. Soon, nearly every room of her house was filled with friends’ and neighbors’ car seats waiting to be reupholstered.
Rojas, who majored in fashion merchandising, opened her own shop, Zulema Custom Interiors, near Old Dominion 91Ƶ in 2020. Her first job: reupholstering helicopter seats. She moved her business to Virginia Beach in 2021.
She’s worked on boats, but she focuses on cars, including a job last year to remake a client’s seats with a “Black Panther” theme.
“I’m proud of myself to be one person and to be doing everything,” from hoisting seats to sewing together swatches of fabric, says Rojas, who was profiled in The Virginian-Pilot last summer.
She usually works with leather, vinyl or canvas. “I try not to do cloth; it takes away from the look I want to create,” Rojas says. She also designs purses to match the seats.
In March 2023, she opened a bay, allowing her to expand to carpeting and store cars she’s working on. It takes roughly a day to refinish one seat and up to two weeks for an entire car.
“It’s very difficult to take the seats apart and put them back together,” says Rojas, who previously worked as an assistant to British fashion designer Lizzi London. “You have to disconnect the battery, the heat and the airbags, and there are so many connections underneath the car.”
Zulema Custom Interiors – named for her mother, who died when Rojas was 6 – won the Virginia Beach Award for best upholstery business in 2020 and 2022.
Johanna Pypcinsky asked Rojas to reupholster her Dodge Ram in 2022 after seeing Rojas’ work. She’s now riding in style with high-end vinyl seats in charcoal gray and latte brown.
“It’s simply beautiful,” Pypcinsky says. “She did so many cool things, and it’s such an upgrade to a Ram. It feels like pure luxury sliding into them. I think she’s going to do well in her business.”