The collection covers a range of emotions relating to the designer’s life, from motherhood, her recent struggles as a working single mother to reconciling with her own childhood, when there was little space or understanding for her creative pursuits.

“More than 3 years had passed since my last collection, and in this time frame a lot had happened, not only in my personal life, but also in the world. I had given birth in the beginning of the pandemic, which prompted a strange blend of happiness and sorrow. I had my son, but I didn’t have the world to share him with any longer. One year later my partner and I separated, and the balance tilted towards the latter feeling. When I began thinking about a new collection, I knew I needed to address all these experiences, the disappointment, but gratitude as well, for a beautiful and important story that ended. This was infused with a sense of wonder and excitement about the new work ahead and how it will be influenced by the new role I now play in my own personal life, a mother. In a very unexpected way, motherhood brought me the closest I have ever been to my true creative self. It brought upon many anxieties, but at the same time it has stripped me of expectations and burdens that were not my own. It’s a sad collection, but it’s honesty is beautiful and filled with hope. It’s also my most mature work. There’s a dress in the collection, the first one I made, a sheer silk ankle-length dress with fine stripes and long sleeves ending in ruffles, its colors are washed down as if a tide of sadness had come over it. It made me think of Sade’s lyrics “I’m crying everyone’s tears” from her song “King of sorrow”. In the music video she portrays a single mother trying to balance motherhood with an artistic career. This is where I find myself as well in this moment”.                  

With this collection the designer was more interested in developing the pieces as ways of communication rather than finite, final products, looking to present the personal language of her work, her vision and the brand’s esthetics, always a fusion of light and darkness, joy and sorrow, and austere and playful, in order to create a dialogue around her work and its references. The starting point was a portrait of an arlequin by Corneliu Baba, that comes up all throughout the collection in details such as ruffled collars, square prints or bouffant volumes.

“As I was researching Romanian painters for the collection, I came upon Corneliu Baba’s ‘Arlequin’. I found myself looking at this incredibly sorrowful portrait and thinking of the honesty of his gaze, its heaviness, but also the relief in his surrender. I am who I am, I feel what I feel. It helped me look in my own life and let everything just be. The chiaroscuro technique reminded me of my passion for painting when I was a young  girl and I was interested in Byzantine iconography. It made me think of how much darkness is necessary in order for the light to shine through more brightly. It is also something we tried to reproduce in the ad campaign as well.”