Today is Bosnia i Hercegovina, which also has a fashion week in Sarajevo. I suppose I wasn't aware of all the international fashion shows since my exposure is mainly Milan, Paris, and NYC. It's a great challenge to find these designers because it shows me a new side of fashion that's not so prominent.
Enough of my jabber. The first designer is
Emina Husedžinović. She's been a regular at the Sarajevo cat walk for a number of years and has
website (hallelujah!). I love easy to find websites. I browsed a few collections ("kolekcija") and I was naturally drawn to haute couture. It's way more fun to be wacky, seriously. The dress to the right is from this 2007 collection. The graphic print is so 5th grade notebook doodle and it's a backless
hoodie dress. GAH. Love. I'm a total sucker for the black, red, and white combo. I have yet to find blue, gray, and black combo is designer duds, but for some reason I like that too. She's a very legit designer and her biography (in Bosnian, but
here's the Goggle translation) is chock full of projects she did. I was particularly intrigued by her work with the "Bar-Sar", a folklore service cooperative that employs the wives of fallen soldiers. She also did costume design for the National Theater in Sarajevo. She attended school in Zagreb and wrote about the role of coat dresses in high fashion. I like her. You can see some of her latest creations in this
slideshow about the Sarajevo Fashion Week.
The next designer is
Adnan Hajrulahović Haad. I found him early in my search, which signals that he is a very prominent Bosnian designer. This
article confirms this and after looking at one
collection, I completely understood why. The
dresses (like the one to the right) were made out of this amazing crimped fabric. Part of the reason I love it so much is because my Barbie had a dress made with a similar fabric and I thought it was the prettiest dress out of all of the ones I had. I still think it's beautiful, obviously. It evokes my girlhood thoughts on sexual appeal while still being sophisticated and understated. These designs showed up at the Tirana AND Belgrade Fashion Week, which is how I first came across them. If you look at this
link (used in the Albanian designers post and the link mislabels the designs as Mimi's), you'll see the amazing
dress I loved. Very similar to the Barbie dress I had. Can I own it so I can fulfill my girlie dreams?
The next designer is
Lejla Salibašić. She is BiH born, but working in London. I'm going to count her because I counted
Katerina Bocci. She's also been in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Northern England, which is a cool background to have in fashion. She's shown in Belgrade, Ljubljana, and Sarajevo for their respective fashion weeks and has a very
slouchy vibe. What confused me the most was the explanation for her inspiration. I don't know about you guys, but I had to really think it out. I'm pretty sure I still have no idea, but I've come closer to concluding this to be true. My best idea is that she was uninfluenced by other designers, but by nebulous ideas. I guess she was also aspiring to some utopian ideal of clothes. My utopian clothes wouldn't be quite like hers, but I like the suggestion. I get the feeling these clothes need to be seen at a closer distance because they're rather minimalist and when it comes down to that, it's about details and shape. I get a poor feel for both in the tiny photos. Oh well. She unfortunately has no website for me to browse.
That wraps up BiH for today. Hopefully you're enjoying fashion from the Balkans and ready for the Baltics!
