Romania’s five-designer project at London Fashion Week 2017

Romanian project Standpoint, which brings together five innovative local designers, will be presented at the British Council and British Fashion Council’s International Fashion Showcase 2017, in association with London Fashion Week. The International Fashion Showcase (IFS) is a festival of emerging designers, coordinated in collaboration with London embassies and cultural institutes “to showcase their countries’ most exciting designers in an exhibition that reflects their nations’ contemporary culture.” The participating Romanian designers are: Smaranda Almășan, Emese Bakó, Andreea Castrase, Sabina Pop, and Ancuța Sarca. The exhibition is designed by architect Attila Kim, the commissioner of Romania’s 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale participation and one of the Romanian names on the list of nominees for this year’s EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture. With a studio at the Paintbrush Factory in Cluj, a collective space for contemporary arts, Smaranda Almăşan is a high fashion design label whose collections are “characterized by elegant designs, fine cuts and sharp silhouettes.” Over the past few years, she launched several collections in Bucharest and participated at the fashion fairs in Düsseldorf, Munich and Vienna, according to a presentation by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London. Emese Bakó completed an internship at the British fashion house Giles Deacon, and worked for the fast fashion company H&M in Stockholm. Her designs are “a visual representation of desirable attitudes and unique delicacy.” Andreea Castrase received important awards during her career as a fashion designer: in 2015 she was awarded the Best Young Designer award at Elle Style Awards and the Best Young Designer at Beau Monde Awards. She worked for brands such as Ann Demeulemeester and H&M, and developed “an aesthetics that could be defined as timeless, often austere but always managing to convey a certain emotion.” Sabina Pop is a ready to wear design label. Her work is influenced by the connection between contemporary art and design. She is currently enrolled in the PhD program of the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. Her pieces are “wearable yet daring.” Ancuţa Sarca interned at the London Studio of label Meadham Kirchhoff. In her most recent collection, she “translates concepts of social and cultural movement into the feel of unconventional materials, vibrant colors and hi-tech fabric experiments.”