Flying Solo’s Paris Fashion Week Show
This season, the Flying Solo Paris Fashion Week Show took place at Salons Marceau on October 3rd, showcasing 25 brands from all over the world. We sat down with some of the designers to talk about the stories behind their brands.
Flying Solo
AJinCO
“It’s a ray of light from the earlrobe.”
I’ve loved manufacturing ever since I was a child, and after graduating from fashion school, I started my brand in 2013.
Concept: You can tell at a glance. I can’t take my eyes off you right away. It glitters. It’s the light that comes down. You can’t resist it. Shine a light on.
Based on this concept, we aim to become a leading brand by adding novelty to our simple designs. I hope that even if it’s just for a moment AJiNCO’s products will make people happy. We are targeting women with a simple lifestyle who don’t want to forget femininity and fun.
The items that we announced at the Paris fashion show are based on AJiNCO’s concept, “A Ray of Light from the EARLOBE.”
Following this vision, we have created a simple collection that is fresh and playful. AJiNCO’s main materials are acrylic and natural wood.
We used these materials to create pieces that could play a leading role in outfit coordination.
It took about a month to make everything from design, to cut, to finish. Our greatest reward will be if you could feel the warmth of the handmade ‘Made-in-Japan’ pieces.”
APRIL & ALEX
A brand focused on producing high-quality fashion that is bold and edgy at reasonable prices.
My brand was launched in its current shape and form 2 years ago, in 2018, however as far back as 2011 April and Alex already existed as a fashion blog. For the first few years, we used to showcase on the blog really edgy and unique fashion designers until, in 2018, I decided to take the next step and launch my own brand.
We’re a mission-driven brand so we create womenswear that emphasizes boldness, uniqueness and edginess and also shines a light on women’s empowerment. Growing up I was exposed to fashion inspiration and from the very young age of around eight years old I was influenced by the fashion choices of my grandmother. She was a fashion model in the 1940s and my mother had, and still has, a tailoring business and ready to wear store so I grew up surrounded by fashion. It wasn’t until I reached my late teens that I developed my own unique style which galvanized the creation of my bold, edgy fashion pieces. The idea of the blog was incited by women who are fearless and edgy, innovative and extroverted, women who are willing to take bold risks, who are unconventional, who never seek permission nor validation to be whoever they want to be.
DOT BY MOR
Less is more
I started my brand when I finished my degree around 2015. A year later I started to work on my first collection and I opened a physical shop in 2019. The vision for this collection was inspired by a napkin, a simple piece of paper that I crumbled in my hands. I copied the action and the movements of the paper and translated them into the fabric.
EMER ROBERTS DESIGN
Edgy, elegant in fine art design.
I started my jewelry brand in 2017. My background is actually in sculpture and my current collection is based around rats from my sculptural background. In 2008 I was in the middle of my Masters course in fine art & sculpture in Dublin when my brother took his own life.
At the time when this happened I have been working with mammals as part of my degree. The suicide affected me deeply and I ended up working with rats as they kept taking me back to the tragic event. When faced with adversity, you don’t think bunny rabbits…
At the end of my MFA I re-created Michelangelo’s Pieta (‘The Piety’). Mine was a reinterpretation of a child. A large 5-foot rat holding a child, I created it in 2008 which was the Year of the Rat, and this year, 2020, is also the Year of the Rat, and more specifically that of the metal rat.
It’s all been a very synchronistic journey and I didn’t realize it until recently. From 2008 onwards I was working with a food philosopher on conceptual banquets and I was working with rats as a mold maker. I worked at a conceptual banquet in Dublin and I even served rat meat. This was 5 or 6 years ago. I don’t eat meat but I had to cut the heads and the limbs of these 18 rats and they were all responsibly sourced.
In 2016 I started to learn about metals and I started to think I want to work in jewelry. So when I first launched my brand I decided to work with architectural and art deco inspired designs. In 2017, when my first collection came out I won an award straight away and with every intention to bring the rat back into my work I went and created sculptural jewelry so my first three collections were wearable biology.
These are cast straight from the animal. The first one was the tail. The second one is the lower jaw of the rat and this one is the snout. The first one was like the tail wrapped around a finger in solid silver or gold. The second one was the lower jaw and I created an art deco nouveau visual with the floral patterns of the art nouveau aesthetic.
My current collection is the “Wearable Biology Snout Collection” and it’s chain mail so I created fine chain mail jewelry. This collection came from grief but in a positive sense. I just have a natural fascination for the species.
GABRIELLA CAVANDA COUTURE
Clothing that is not to be worn as camouflage but exists to build people up and express themselves with no words.
I started my brand after finishing school in 2011 because I always knew that I wanted to express my creativity and my feelings through my creations. Setting up the brand Gabriella Cavanda Couture allowed me to do it without any limitations. My goal was to create a collection that helped boost confidence and self-love, whilst showing women’s natural charm and beauty, in a simple but yet elegant stance, with a touch of originality.
I am a wife and a mother but also an entrepreneur who loves originality, therefore I wanted to portray this through my clothing line whilst keeping sobriety and purity to allow the customers to affirm themselves. I wanted to have a silhouette with character and help build confidence in my clients. My clothing line addresses women who wish to affirm their charm without talking, women who allow their actions, behaviors, and work to speak for themselves. I want to encourage the women who do not need words to gain confidence, to become women who speak with their personality, who inspire respect and admiration only with their presence expressed through their clothing that has been customized for them.
GRETES.SHOP
Created for all people
I started my brand in 2018. Fashion was my passion for a long time and I decided that I wanted to launch my own brand and make it my full-time job. Finding my niche in silk actually happened by accident. I’ve made a silk sleep mask for myself and then my friends wanted to have the same. This inspired me to try silk hair accessories because I read that silk is really good for your hair and prevents damage. When I did some research I found that silk hair accessories out in the market already were basically standard and simple so I decided to make ones that were more detailed, unique and original.
My customers are my inspiration because they write to me and ask me to add this or that or ask me about certain details. I communicate with my customers directly and have really close relationship with them.
LA ROSA
Edgy, basic silhouettes, and monochrome colors.
I’ve actually been doing this for quite some time now but I launched the brand officially one year ago. I started to dabble in fashion when I was very young and I played a lot with fabrics. When I was a child. My family had a fabric store and for Christmas I would always get a pile of fabrics.
This inspired me to play, to sketch and generally promoted my interest in fashion at a very early age. Then when I went to high school in Belgium, I actually graduated with a diploma in fine arts and after that I went to college and I was wondering what I’m going to do with my life. Was I going to study fashion, or not? I then applied for fine arts again but, you know, my interest in fashion was so great that I didn’t do the whole fine arts program and dropped out in my first year. I just said to myself that I want to do fashion and that I have to do it all by myself.
My inspiration comes from ‘80s fashion and I’m particularly interested in Belgian fashion. I studied Belgian fashion for a very long time so my style and influences come from there but they are more like anti-fashion. I don’t want to simply make fashion but to make anti-fashion. That’s where my inspiration comes from – for both men and women who feel good in edgy, basic silhouettes, and monochrome colors like black and nude. Each design is unique so no piece will ever be the same as another.
MATEUS NUDELMANN
The art of creating exclusive gowns for unique women
The Mateus Nudelmann brand was established in 2014 with the intention of creating exclusive and luxurious party gowns. Mateus started his career at the Academy, graduated in Fashion Design, and almost immediately started working on his brand, based on his experience of the years he lived in Paris, where he obtained a great arsenal of knowledge. His pieces with their artistic bias and unique embroidery, transform fabrics into real wearable pieces of jewelry.
The inspiration for this collection is a tribute to indigenous culture and the beauty of the rich details of the Amazonian fauna and flora. Hand embroidery and exclusive prints by Brazilian artist Simone Campos, represent this unique, meticulous and colorful diversity through a modern language between seams and brush strokes, producing true works of art.
MIOONA
Bold, joyful, and alternative design.
I started my brand about 4 years ago when I graduated and became a shoe designer in Finland. My first steps in shoe design were actually with a different company but soon after my brand came along and I have been working on my own collections for about 4 years now.
There are quite a lot of African influences in my style because I’ve done a lot of work with African countries and did part of my studies there as well. I am fascinated by indigenous cultures. As a person who was born in Finland I find that our architecture and design are very different from those in Africa, so I try to blend the two and create a fusion. What’s really important to me are ergonomics and sustainability.
VOICE INTERNATIONAL
An ethical sustainable social and creative enterprise to empower women and create beautiful products
I initially moved to Uganda to work for a charity and it was through this experience, working in the slum community, that I became aware of women’s unemployment issues in East Africa. It was about five years later, in 2016, when I came up with the vision to empower women through creative design, fashion, textiles and jewelry. That same year we officially founded the company.
Our inspiration comes from the blend of our cultures because our stories are such a big part of our mission and our vision. We are also driven to use materials that are sustainable and a part of Ugandan culture and also the British fashion look and mixing the two together.
WEISHENG PARIS
At the age of twelve, I left my native Taiwan to pursue my dream of becoming a fashion designer. Over the next few years, my journey took me to Canada, the United States, and ultimately to France where I enrolled in Parsons Paris, graduating in the Spring of 2018 with a BFA in Fashion Design. During my time at Parsons, I undertook coursework in graphic design, textiles (surface and materials), as well as tailoring and structure.
I completed internships at Sacai in 2016 and Loewe in 2017, and was also selected for a Woolmark scholarship for the 2017 school year and was taught by Christoph Hefti. During my final year, I was taught by and worked in collaboration with haute couture designers Tal Lancman and Maurizio Galante.
Outside of Parsons, I also undertook coursework in draping at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne and embroidery at the Ecole Lesage. My senior capsule collection, exhibited at the Parsons Paris fashion show in May 2018, was the fruit of collaborations undertaken with feather artisans Janaina Milheiro and Mazzanti Duccio, as well as with Legeron Paris. My goal is, and always has been, to craft vintage-inspired, modern takes on contemporary European fashion, infusing the romance of fashion’s golden age with recent innovations in the industry.
The Mateus Nudelmann brand was established in 2014 with the intention of creating exclusive and luxurious party gowns. Mateus started his career at the Academy, graduated in Fashion Design, and almost immediately started working on his brand, based on his experience of the years he lived in Paris, where he obtained a great arsenal of knowledge. His pieces with their artistic bias and unique embroidery, transform fabrics into real wearable pieces of jewelry.
The inspiration for this collection is a tribute to indigenous culture and the beauty of the rich details of the Amazonian fauna and flora. Hand embroidery and exclusive prints by Brazilian artist Simone Campos, represent this unique, meticulous and colorful diversity through a modern language between seams and brush strokes, producing true works of art.
ZOHAR
A discussion of individual states of consciousness towards connection in human beings and mutual guarantee.
I started my brand three years ago. Before that I was doing painting on huge canvases, using wires and paint and different elements. About three years ago it transformed into crafting pieces of jewelry.
My spiritual journey is to a big degree due to going through quite a difficult illness after the birth of my son nearly 10 years ago. It was then that I started doing art just as a means of healing myself and the more I did it, especially when I picked the wires, the more I realized that it was actually healing me. It had an effect on my nervous system and this is where the practice of rewiring of consciousness started from. That also flows into my jewelry and every time I create I’m very much entwined in the jewelry and go through a transformation of energy. I could be coming from a state of low energy such as traumatic memories or aches and pains but then something happens.
As I work with the metals and work with the pearls all of that transforms into something very, very beautiful, into a loving state and loving consciousness inside of me. For me every piece of jewelry holds up very unique energy and a specific state.
Photo credits:
Imaxtree @imaxtree
Alena Afanaseva @alena_fnsv
Head Stylist of the show:
Alina Kotsiuba @alinakotsiubka
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With love,
FWO
