Author: Ana Gheata

  • Making a Mistake of It: Ruth Yoojean’s How to Play?!

    Making a Mistake of It: Ruth Yoojean’s How to Play?!

    Parsons grad Ruth Yoojean built her collection How to Play?! around mistakes, scraps, and working directly on her own body — turning failure into a design method.

  • Jean Chang Turns Military and Medical Codes Into Intimate Wear

    Jean Chang Turns Military and Medical Codes Into Intimate Wear

    New York designer Jean Chang on Forgotten Skin, a debut collection that reworks military and medical references — pinstripe harnesses, gauze strapping, orthopedic gaitors — into something intimate.

  • Astha Garg Is Designing What Stays Behind

    Astha Garg Is Designing What Stays Behind

    At 21, Astha Garg has already reached a milestone many young designers spend years chasing: showing at London Fashion Week. But she does not speak about the moment as a finish line. For her, it marked a deepening of purpose. Since launching her brand at 18, Garg has wanted it to stand for more than…

  • Darian Vacariu Explores Emotional Distance and Connection Through Fashion

    Darian Vacariu Explores Emotional Distance and Connection Through Fashion

    For emerging designer Darian Vacariu, fashion is more than clothing. It is a way to express emotions and experiences visually. His collection La Givan, developed during his studies at Istituto Marangoni Milano, explores how people move from guarded distance to genuine connection. Through structured silhouettes, cultural references, and evolving shapes, the collection transforms the idea…

  • Alisa Dudaj and the Revival of Albanian Craft

    Alisa Dudaj and the Revival of Albanian Craft

    For Alisa Dudaj, this collection began not with a sketch, but with a pause. At a time when she felt creatively adrift, searching outward for references and direction, she found herself increasingly disconnected from her work. Conversations about identity and personal language circled around her, yet the answers felt distant, until she realized that what…

  • Why Shay Greenberg’s Bridalwear Is Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before

    Why Shay Greenberg’s Bridalwear Is Unlike Anything You’ve Seen Before

    Shay Greenberg’s graduate collection from Shenkar doesn’t just question the fantasy of the wedding day, it reconstructs it, thread by thread. By merging the iconic language of bridalwear with the grounded sensibility of street fashion, Shay transforms critique into a tactile experience. Her work lives in the seams, the cuts, and the physical effort behind…

  • What Happens When a Designer Treats Clothing Like an Archaeological Site

    What Happens When a Designer Treats Clothing Like an Archaeological Site

    For Julie Wang, fashion isn’t just about dressing the body, it’s about unearthing who we are. Through her brand JUULIE JUULIE, the Parsons designer approaches fashion as a form of excavation. It becomes a tool for questioning identity, revisiting history, and telling deeply personal stories through clothing. Her guiding philosophy, what she calls a “new…

  • HTML 7277’s NYC Exhibition Turns Fashion into a System of Surveillance

    HTML 7277’s NYC Exhibition Turns Fashion into a System of Surveillance

    When we first featured HTML 7277 in The Vanilla Issue, the duo was preparing for their debut New York exhibition. That show, CTRL <observables>, has since taken place at The Blanc, a curatorial space in Midtown Manhattan known for advancing experimental visual and performance art within a leading commercial gallery context. Hosted at The Blanc…

  • Jewel Kaye transforms personal rebirth into fashion with his brand Wijnruit

    Jewel Kaye transforms personal rebirth into fashion with his brand Wijnruit

    Fashion becomes a language of survival for Jewel Kaye, the multidisciplinary creative behind Wijnruit. Through his London-based label, Kaye transforms pain into beauty, merging myth and material in a story of metamorphosis and rebirth. “I was obsessed with danger,” he recalls. “Then the crash came, and my back broke, and suddenly I was forced to…

  • Ethical Italian made fashion by Stacy Wear blending streetwear and tailoring

    Ethical Italian made fashion by Stacy Wear blending streetwear and tailoring

    In the heart of Tuscany, where centuries of textile work shaped global style, a new voice is rewriting the rules of modern fashion. Stacy Wear, founded by Florence-based designer Alessia Scarpelli, is an independent brand built on contrast: the raw edge of streetwear mixed with the skill of Italian artisan craft. This dual identity, urban…