ASPHYXIA – Pioneers of the Heart
London / Luton, University of Bedfordshire; 2019
16 min

In these images, clothing is not surface but structure — a daily act through which identity, history, and future are negotiated.

With over seven billion people in the world, we share a simple daily gesture: we get dressed. Fashion is not a luxury phenomenon, but a daily ritual — a decision about how we appear, how we present ourselves, how we wish to be seen. In this sense, fashion is always also a small celebration. Every single day.

Asphyxia emerged from my collaboration with fashion design students in Greater London. For over half a year, I accompanied them on their journey toward their final collections. I was not an observer, but part of an intense and collegial process.

Many of them come from migrant families and are the first in their generation to attend university. Their designs do not emerge from trends, but from biographies, religious influences, and urban realities. “Modest Fashion” appears here not as restriction, but as a self-determined aesthetic position.

The studio was a pulsating space: discussions, fabrics, music, doubt, friendships. Women from Bulgaria, Romania, the Caribbean, Nairobi, and China worked side by side. Differences were not smoothed out, but productively interwoven.

Within an urban environment shaped by social tensions, fashion becomes a political practice. One student developed her collection in response to the violent death of her brother. Others began their studies after years of family responsibility.

This is not about models or surface.
This is about essence.

Garments are not created for the gaze, but from an inner conviction. Fashion becomes an act — not as a statement, but as a lived design.

Dreams are not declared.
They are sewn.

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