The story

When I was a child, all it took was a piece of fabric to open up an entire world. Curtains became evening gowns, scarves turned into capes, and my mother’s high heels completed every imagined look. I made my friends play “fashion designer”: I was the designer, they were the husbands I divorced. Films like One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Devil Wears Prada, and the story of Coco Chanel convinced me that female fashion designers were always tyrannical, sharp-tongued, and divorced.

At the same time, I was learning quieter things. My grandmother taught me to sew on buttons, I learned to knit, and through ballet I began stitching my own pointe shoes and tutus. When I discovered that Coco Chanel had started with hats, I dismantled every old straw hat I could find, rebuilding them with ribbons and flowers. With a friend, I even founded a small imaginary fashion house. We turned scraps of fabric into evening dresses. They were not beautiful, but they were full of enthusiasm.

Then I grew up, and sewing faded into the background.

Howevers, years later, during the pandemic, I bought a sewing machine. 

I started again without thinking too much about it. I would pick up inexpensive fabrics at the market, cut them, unpick them, reshape them. Sewing became a quiet, essential space. Sometimes I began with the fabric, letting it guide me. Sometimes I tried to recreate a dress glimpsed on a mannequin. Other times, I simply followed instinct.

Today, my life is made of many things. I study, I write, I work in international cooperation. I photograph, I wander. And somewhere in between, I sew.

This space is just that. A small opening for what has always been there. 

I kept my dresses secret for years, now, it is time to open my wardrobe.