17/12/2014

The Talented: Maryam Nassir Zadeh

Since 2008, Iranian born textile-designer and stylist Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s boutique and showroom at the Lower East Side in New York City, has been an ever more fascinating hub within the fashion world. Zadeh studied textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her first sandal collection, of a very simple and universal style, was produced in Mexico and infused with her love for all things ‘summer’. Inspired by traditional shoes worn in Mexico, the sandals designed by Zadeh were an update of the original model with different-colored leathers, bringing forth an individual yet minimalistic approach.

While her shop features a long list of fabulous designers, in 2014 Maryam Nassir Zadeh decided to pour hours of research into her own collection. Staying true to her individual style, the collections has an ease and artistic essence while being both of and ahead of its time. Her SS15 collection proposes a take on what the 1970s woman would have worn in the 1990s: modern minimalistic twists on retro classics such as safari inspired blazers in muted colors with just touches of bright orange, mint and blue tones, with open crop tops, fine knit turtlenecks and buttoned down sundresses as some of the collections’ key elements. Deliberately pursuing a retro feel and framing a cerebral vibe, the designer chooses to pair a tailored hounds-tooth skirt-suit with bikini tops, avoiding the conservative approach and adding the sense of anticipation of what Summer will bring. The unique, retro and complex minimalism has become somewhat of a trademark for Zadeh and is also a particularly sophisticated touch only a few possess, both on the lower-east side or around the world.

Victoria Edman 
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05/12/2014

The Talented: Simone Rocha

Simone Rocha, the Dublin-born designer and Central Saint Martins graduate, showed a new side of her designer self when her Spring 2015 collection was sent down the runway. Simone Rocha’s design aesthetics is known for being both romantic and down to earth in quite a unique way. She lets her choice of fabrics, layering skills, eye for details and great cuts, speak for themselves, finding a way to create romantic pieces without the risk of overdoing it. The natural colour scheme and clean styling gives her design a much deeper and darker appearance, while remaining beautiful and sweet in an edgy rather than princess-y way.

Nevertheless, for her Spring 2015 collection, Simone took a step out of her comfort zone, including a couple of pieces with patterns in eye-catching colours. Challenging herself to push the boundaries of her own work, yet framing it within within her own peculiar aesthetics, the resulting pieces were distinctly ‘Rocha’ yet offered a new glimpse into her way of understanding fashion research. In Rocha’s collections, deliberately feminine pieces – such as red flowers – are knowingly combined into bold collections which are bolder, subtly ironic and ultimately, carefree. But, the most important element in Simone Rocha’s work is knowing who she is as a designer and how to take on a challenge without losing herself.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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31/10/2014

The Talented: Juyan Zhou

Thousands of applicants has been narrowed down to 24 lucky semifinalists in H&M Design Award for 2015. Among the chosen young talents from schools like Parsons the New School for Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Central Saint Martins in London and the Royal Academy of Art in Antwerp, is the Paris-based designer Juyan Zhou.

Juyan Zhou attended L’Institut Français de la mode in Paris and her graduation show was – as with the rest of the award’s applicants – attended, photographed and noted before she was chosen by a jury in Stockholm. Her design is influenced by illustrations and photography, which takes shape through her brushstroke inspired patterns and innovative constructions. The pureness of nature and sculptural volumes are other sources of inspiration for her Fall/Winter 2014/2015 collection, expressed through the natural colour scheme and the concept of playing with volume. She therefore brings photography, painting, architecture and fashion together in her design, challenging our ideas about the idea of fashion as art, while still remaining wearable and subtly utilitarian.

In November, 8 of the 24 talented designers chosen for the award will be getting the opportunity to show their collections in front of a highly respactable international jury who will decide the sort of this season’s award. The winning designer will receive a mentorship with the Swedish retailer, the opportunity to host a runway show during Stockholm Fashion Week, a hefty monetary prize and, most importantly, an in-store collaboration with H&M. Our bet is on Juyan Zhou.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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18/06/2014

The Talented: Yulia Yefimtchuk

Fashion designer and founder of her eponymous brand, Yulia Yefimtchuk is reluctant to speak about the future. It might be that her Slavic origins and the tumultuous past and present of her home country – Ukraine – have instilled an innate sense of suspicion and doubt and taught her to not take anything for granted. And yet, Yefimtchuk’s recent rampant success – following her special Opening Ceremony victory at Hyères Fashion Festival – might well persuade her to think otherwise.

Yulia Yefimtchuk started her career as a fashion designer fresh out of Kiev’s Institute Of Decorative And Applied Art And Design, where she graduated in 2010. Since 2011, Yulia Yefimtchuk+, the official name of her brand, has been producing limited edition womenswear collections entirely in Ukraine. You can easily see the influence of Yefimtchuk’s favourite designers – Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Raf Simons – on her carefully drawn, discreet and almost humble collections. Inspired by everyday life, Yefimtchuk’s creations are particularly harmonious, clear and linear, with minimalistic cuts, straightforward classical silhouettes and constructive details, such as cut-outs or bows, usually placed on the back.

While her previous collections drew from the designer’s inspirational themes in a more subtle and veiled way, the series that won her the recognition of Hyères committee, was much more bold and outspoken towards its rich set of references. Drawn from the Russian Constructivist Movement of the 1920s, the collection sports geometric cuts, pure forms and a stripped down aesthetics – deriving both from the iconic graphic and visual arts imagery of the time, as well as the Soviet-era restrained lifestyle. Conceived both as an ode and as a playful critique to her country’s past, this collection might be the fashion world’s best reminder that beauty can often be found through difficulty and constraint.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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06/06/2014

The Talented: Jacquemus

Origins and background story: Simon Porte, the young French designer behind Jacquemus, came under the fashion spotlight following a slightly unorthodox path. Quitting fashion school after only two months, her worked as an assistant in a creative director’s office until 2010, the year when he founded his own brand. A strong proponent of spontaneity, freedom and informality, he started to draw his own line out of his apartments, often sketching ideas while riding the Métro. Yet since debuting his first collection in the spring of 2013, the clothes have stood out and some of the coolest chicks of the Parisian fashion scene have been spotted wearing his creations, while Dover Street Market and Opening Ceremony, the world’s most sought-after stores, started carrying his collections.

Trademark: One of the key features of Jacquemus’ approach to designing is spontaneity. Simone Porte states: “I don’t like to intellectualise fashion. It’s something very instinctive. Like a child deciding to do something just because they want to. Those circles are like a child drawing something but very badly.” In fact, his clothes are characterized by oversized lines, bold texture and geometric motifs, among which oversized tops and graphic-inspired wear stands out across a couple of collections. Other than his clothes, Jacquemus is also recognized by his way of shaking-up the Parisian fashion week scene with his unorthodox runway style: for his AW 2014 show, he asked all the guests to wear customized hospital scrubs, each having a circular disc stitched onto the torso, while last fall’s presentation was staged at a public swimming pool, where plastic foot-bags were dispensed so that editors wouldn’t sully their shoes.

Collections: Jacquemus’ AW 2014 collection started off with white neoprene looks, where one could recognize Porte’s experimental flair. The first piece, an oversized shirt-dress with a rounded back was followed up by overalls worked over a cropped vest and black pants, with oversized details in the form of rounded shoulders and geometric bottoms. Known for his love of the colour blue, the designer proffered three shades of the hue. There were also several pieces in canary yellow and vivid orange – as well as red and striped accents, which contributed to the collection’s screwy theme.

Chiara Tiso 
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29/05/2014

The Talented: Nomia

Origins and background story: NOMIA designer Yara Flinn has become one of the hottest appointments during the New York fashion week calendar, only a few years after she began showing there her collections. While still an art college student, Yara started experimenting with fashion in a very conceptual way – making handmade pieces and just messing around. In fact, during that time, she also staged a runway show which was more about a live video projection, than showing actual clothes, but she didn’t really pursue a career as fashion designer until she graduated and started working at the Fondazione Prada. She took the time to make a few pieces and bought some patterns she would later tinker with, discovering to be more of a process driven person. Her unique method came about by draping which helped her visualize what she wanted to make while, at the same time, revealing what she was putting together. That is how NOMIA came about, apparently by accident and pure chance.

Trademark: NOMIA pieces have a real sportswear flair and a minimal aesthetics. Therefore, it might not come as a surprise that one of Yara’s favourite designers is Helmut Lang – known for his concept of making utilitarian things, combining a fashion forward look with sportswear – a smart choice when you are designing for a New York kind of woman – a city where an effortless look is the best choice you can make.

Collections: For this Fall 2014, Yara Flinn channeled her nostalgia in a modern way. She paired Lurex-flecked mock turtleneck dresses with clean parka coats that looked pretty in pastel-coloured taffeta, for example, and matched cropped sweaters with crepe maxi skirts boasting killer high slits. For this collection, the young designer has been more playful in terms of introducing colour and experimenting with special fabrics; she latched on to still-happening fringe, which accented several pieces including a boxy T-shirt dress and split-seam tunics. Other highlights included a bomber jacket that came in plush, Astrakhan-effect velvet, and patch-pocket jumpsuits that gave off a utilitarian vibe.

Chiara Tiso 
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22/05/2014

The Talented: SUNO

Origins and background story: Max Osterweis created SUNO, a New York based womenswear label, in 2008 after witnessing post-election violence in Kenya. Utilizing the vast collection of Kenyan Kangas that he had been collecting for years, Max joined forces with designer Erin Beatty to launch a high-end collection.

Trademark: SUNO utilizes the local talent of Kenya, India, Peru and New York to create a collection of unique prints, textures and embroideries.

Collections: SUNO was also a 2011 and 2012 finalist in the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund, and a 2012 Nominee and 2013 Winner of the CFDA Swarovski Award for Womenswear. Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty mentioned that their F/W 14 collection was inspired by the true story of Roman people who struck gold by selling scrap metal in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The resulting silhouettes were both beautiful and melancholic. The clothes recall the classic silhouettes of SUNO: long hemlines and boxy dresses with a completely muted color palette. Jewel tones dominated, next to dark, but at the same time striking metallic fabrics lit up the runway.

Chiara Tiso 
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15/05/2014

The Talented – Rejina Pyo

When summed up in fairly few number of words, the story of fashion designer Rejina Pyo might appear nearly identical as any other young and talented designer’s biography. Born abroad (Korea) and currently living in London, after graduation at Central Saint Martins, Pyo worked alongside Roksanda Ilincic before establishing her own brand. Nevertheless, in only three years after her graduation, Pyo collaborated with H&M-owned high-fashion store Weekday to sell pieces from her graduate collection, participated in the “ARRRGH! Monsters in Fashion” exhibition curated by Vassilis Zidianakis, won the prestigious Han Nefkens Fashion Award and created an installation for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

In the meantime, Rejina Pyo has also managed to develop several collections under her name, characterized by clean lines, geometrical detailing and a particularly sophisticated allure. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then, that the structural element in Pyo’s work derives from her obsession with abstract art – paintings by Ellsworth Kelly or Isamu Noguchi’s sculptures – with its simple, primitive aesthetics and blocks of colour. Pyo’s work somewhat explores the blurred lines between art and fashion, creating pieces that are often sculptural and bold, an approach that was particularly evident in her installation in Rotterdam, where Pyo created pieces resembling traditional garments, though none of them were wearable.

Her latest AW 2014 collection further explores this approach. By taking inspiration from Ellisworth Kelly’s words – “I think that if you can turn off the mind and look only with the eyes, ultimately everything becomes abstract” – Pyo has developed a collection where “each garment is used almost as a canvas for an abstract painting, streamlined and minimal in places, and then brought to life with a flash of strong colour in the form of diagonal square panels that act as a unifying theme, reappearing in various sizes throughout the collection. From the belt in an elegantly oversized coat, that cleverly weaves its way around the garment, to the panel of faux fur used in a dark blue evening sweater and the stunning hand painted shard of colour on the shoulder of a white shirt.”

Rujana Rebernjak 
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29/08/2013

The Talented – Erdem

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use, will find their greatest happiness in using it.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Even though this year will be a moment of change we decided to dust off one of our ‘old’ categories “The Talented”, and which would be a better month than September to review talent?

Just like another of our talents, Erdem Moralioglu was born in Montreal but residing currently in London, from where he runs his eponymous ready-to-wear brand, Erdem. In 2005, some time after having completed his training at the prestigious Royal College of Art and working alongside a couple of grand names in fashion, he went back to London to establish the brand that today has become synonymous with versatile, powerful femininity. The garments aren’t made for one woman, they are made for every woman that falls for the pieces – independent and strong with sensuality and femininity mixing in symbiosis. He goes for uncomfortable colour combinations, experimental textiles and vibrant prints, and with a beautifully executed work and craftsmanship he creates pieces that have been mentioned as ‘timeless’.


Erdem isn’t afraid of being “wrong”. On the other hand, he often talks about how nothing is as right as when it’s wrong. With inspiration from the world of art – theatre, film, books – and nature, he is creating his own world where delicate and bold walk hand in hand. Having always worked with colours, he went black for Fall/Winter 2013-14, only letting the bright accompany the dark. Exploring the colour that for so many other designers is a given, Erdem put new light on his interpretation of the modern day woman.

Influences that don’t make sense until they do, exquisite materials and the signature balance between right and wrong – with fashion week approaching, we’re in anticipation of seeing what comes up to the surface.

Lisa Olsson Hjerpe 
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