The first fashion week in Eastern Europe
BFW, founded in 1996, is a unique, commercial, promotional and artistic fashion festival in the Balkan region, created in accordance with similar events in the world.
The main characteristic of Belgrade Fashion Week is its great ability to synthetize the artistic and commercial aspect. It respects the importance of the constant education of all factors on the fashion scene therefore the event shares each season its know-how and exchange of experience with designers.
Belgrade Fashion Week has participated in introducing almost all important Serbian fashion designers and made a great contribution to the development of the independent fashion design scene.
In the social environment, which does not provide enough support for the independent fashion scene as a part of creative industry, BFW constantly supports and invests in emerging fashion designers and young talents.
Ana Ljubinkovic
Ana Ljubinković (pronunciation Lyoubinkovich) is a womenswear designer and artist based in Belgrade, Serbia. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Belgrade, with a degree in Painting. Upon graduation, Ana Ljubinković decided to bring to life the fashion sketches she had made during the course of studies. Her first collection was presented at Belgrade Fashion Week. That moment is considered as the beginning of the Ana Ljubinković label. The designer`s thoughtful and well–conceived play with fashion “rules” is strongly evocative of its roots in visual arts.
Ana Ljubinković has always been an experimenter with fabrics, colors and forms and a maximalist when it comes to shapes and details. The designer`s collections embody all the positives of kitsch: its color, its humor, its play. There is always a central story in her collections – but it`s never clear where it`ll take you. The images she produces are weird, challenging and bewildering – until your eyes adjust to what you are taking in. For a moment, it turns sticky sweet, but then it hits you – Ljubinković`s pieces conjure a mood, an atmosphere of what a perfect, dreamlike world should be like.
About the AW18 collection:
Andy Warhol’s sentence “Kiss me with your eyes” was used as the inspiration for Ana Ljubinkovic’s collection of the same name. This statement describes the relationship between a work of art and its admirer and which represents freedom, love, happiness, joy or sadness… It is obvious that the silhouette is flawed and ripped on purpose, but at the same time is still feminine and soft. The collection has retained Ana’s recognisable forms therefore the focus has been shift onto the artistic elements such as the combination of fabrics, texture, colours and details. Through the holes on the garments, faces from works of art are visible as the designer wants to remind the audience how important art is in everyday life. All the looks are complement by ABO shoes.
Teodora Pasalic
Collection “Engine Energy”
Inspired by the powerful energy of engines, the collection resembles visually and physically the edgy look and feel of being ready for a race.
The complex concept of designing with zips and patents placed under different angles gives a structured, geometric aspect with elements of the futuristic look.
The use of leather and special materials such as latex and neoprene creates a stronger visual that is directly associated with motor bikers. The combination of colours (white, black and grey with red) is an important part of the collection because it challenges the traditional idea of the everyday aesthetic.
Aleksandra Lalic
Aleksandra Lalic treats fashion as art by implementing her knowledge of the history of art and combining it with her talent for materialisation of garment from sketch to realisation. LalicA fashion label incorporates her interest in conceptual into everyday clothing. It is a mixture of intricate cut made into simple garments and interesting quality materials. From long, oversized pants to super-fitted jackets and feminine balloon skirts, LalicA is following her inner silhouette-vision. He is a Belgrade Design District member.
About the collection:
The collection “DRUGARICE (FRIENDS)” follows Lalic’s recognisable aesthetic. Going against the thinking that the beauty of the body is a must and that to reach it, one needs to follow the fashion rules, she created her own “fashion formula”. These wearable pieces create a new dimension of the body through discreet but poetic transformations. Simply, the body can do what the fabric is unable to and vice versa: the body helps the fabric move, while the fabric talks to the body.
RAEGUN by Kamran Patel
Kamran Patel is an Indian fashion designer showing at Belgrade Fashion Week for the second consecutive season. While building a reputation as a talented and innovative designer who continuously pushes the boundaries of design, he also explores the traditional crafts of India that are modernised with today’s technological advances in fashion.
“It helps a designer think beyond boundaries by using these almost extinct crafts in a very different way”. Kamran Patel
He strives to create an unexpected beauty of imperfection by keeping the futuristic and traditional elements of design for today’s global market. Kamran has previously presented his collection at Fashion Scout during London Fashion Week and he works closely under the mentorship of London-based Creative Director Joseph Toronka. He studied at INIFD in Mumbai and at The London School of Trends in London.
About the collection:
The secret of our lives lies beyond our hearts and is powered by our subconscious. The heart is as deep as space and is the merger of the dark and the light, the ugly and the beautiful – in that way making the collection “Life in the subliminal”. Trying to see and understand the other side of life changes the perspective and the lack of limitations and by tricking the visual perspective, an illusion of imperfection is created. The illusion prints and tessellation techniques are used in order to give a third dimension to clothing. The designer incorporates traditional Rogan painting into his collection, a craft which is almost at a point of extinction and can be found in the Indian region of Kutch mastered by only one family. The Rogan painting motif inspires the use of tessellation art whilst 3D printing is used as a form of embellishment.
Budislava Kekovic
Budislava is one of the Belgrade Design District founders and who can still be found there with her store BUDISLAVA. She is designing clothing, shoes, bags and jewellery. She finds inspiration for her work in simple forms and dark tones of underwater world, modern architecture geometry, Japanese culture and art and wonders of nature. While she is a regular at Belgrade Fashion Week, she has previously showcased at Fashion Scout during London Fashion Week as well.
About the collection:
Budislava’s newest collection “Overlapping” draws her inspiration from natural processes that over thousands of years have divided continents and from waves and storms that have changed the surface of the Earth. The overlapping of fabrics of similar shades gives the impression of different textures, while the stuffing of the garments add dimension. The fabrics don’t have a meaning on their own, but they become the focus once they get stacked and overlapped.
FB: www.facebook.com/budislava
IG: @budislava
WEB: www.budislava.com
Milica Ceneric
The designer Milica Ceneric was born in Kotor, Montenegro where she started being interested in art at a very young age. Her love for fashion design brought her to the university Dzon Nesbit, located in the fashion capital of the Balkan region, Belgrade. While this is the first time Milica is showcasing at Belgrade Fashion Week, she has previous experience in styling and has already showed her previous collection during her second year of university.
About the collection:
The inspiration for this mini collection came from a dark place trying to reach the light. The film Matrix inspired the sharpness of the cuts, while the main fabrics of the hippie culture contribute to the 70s’ silhouettes in a futuristic look.
SIDHU JI by Anupreet Sidhu
SIDHU JI was founded in 2014 by Anupreet Sidhu with the aim to create simple garments with a twist. Experimental techniques like laser cutting of materials, such as metal and wood, are extensively used to enhance the appearance of the garments. The designer creates pieces that are practical and interchangeable
making that way more diverse and functional collections available to a wider audience.
About the collection:
Getting stuck in a snowstorm on the top of Rainbow Mountains in Peru is a unique experience. The designer feels that if one is lucky enough to be stuck in this magnificent creation of nature, that it needs to be translated into something special.
This experience inspired her to create a collection that appeals to today’s global market. Traditional techniques and fabrics from India, blended with cultural references from South America, have been used to strike a balance between structure and fluidity. Additionally, highlighted in the details, the colours are popping through pleats, delicate trims and embellishments representing an ode to South America. Key pieces include casual to evening wear which are reworked with an inspiration taken from the late 80s and early 90s cinema.
Get Up Jasmina Vujovic
Jasmina Vujović is a fashion designer who runs a fashion store named “Get Up” located in Belgrade Design District, the independent designer area of Belgrade.
Her work is characterized by multilayer and asymmetrical pieces. It’s a mixture of a number of varied forms- casual, feminine and sophisticated. Jasmina’s aesthetic is basically neat with the tendency of studying geometric forms and layers,yet created in succinct colours -black & white. Her collections are for women of exceptional individuality with a dose of courage.
About the collection:
Jasmina’s newest collection “Fiona Graham” is for prefall 2018. The inspiration for this collection is the traditional Japanese belt Obi that can transform itself into another accessory – a bag. The layers of silk, satin and brocade in the interpration of the designer represent the combination of traditional Eastern cuts and creativity from the other side of the world
BELGRADE FASHION WEEK