Transylvanian Fashion Invasion
June 7, 2009
Since 2006 Romania’s most exciting fashion-label has been sending their latest designs from their HQ in the Carpathian mountains to international collections, scaring the shit out of rival metropolitan designers and sending avant-garde fashionistas crazy in the process. A constant hit at London Fashion Week’s OnIOff, for their transylvanian influences and spare aesthetic (except for their floral boots & zany headdress!) Rozalb de Mura ain’t no ordinary label. It’s led by a self-imagined, eponymous Baron who travels through time, space, reality and fiction for projects which work across multidisciplinary-platforms. Alex Jackson caught up with designer and founder, Olah Gyarfas.
A time-travelling Baron? What the Hell?!!
It was our way to ensure we’d have the creative freedom to explore very different concepts and collaborations with musicians and artists. But he is very much a projection of our team – you know how it is when you tell stories and become so engrossed in them that you end up believing them with all your heart? We fell in love with the character we created, so much so that we ourselves don’t know the borders between fiction and reality anymore.
Tell us about your new Autumn/Winter 09/10 collection: “Powder Cadillac 1B-2140 & Desert Twillight 6A – 3410”
The Powder Cadillac 1B-2140 & Desert Twillight 6A – 3410 collection, which we presented at OnIOff London Fashion Week with the generous support of Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Ratiu Family Foundation and ICR London, started out as a reflection on “trend”, a notion that hysterically obsesses the fashion world. People expect a designer to be a sort of guru, authoritatively decreeing what’s “in” and what’s “out”. I’ve always been far from such marketing tools that dictate and push people to buy stuff compulsively, so I thought an ironic take on trends would be a nice starting point for a collection. We found the names in a colour sample catalogue and loved their vintage romantic sound.
Consequently, in the new Rozalb de Mura story, the Baron arranged a meeting with Max Lüscher (the famous Swiss psychotherapist). In the ‘60s, Lüscher invented a colour personality test that established close links between a person’s colour preferences and their personality and psychological traits. The Baron then ‘commissioned’ Lüscher to research the much sought-after “colours of the future” – a shade of grey and a shade of pink.
You live in the Carpathian Mountains, chop wood and breathe the pure air of the Transylvanian country – how is your rural side distilled into your ultra-modern designs and can you tell us more about your home-town of Miercurea Ciuc?
I was born in and I grew up amid nature, I breath nature, it’s in my veins. It’s not a conscious choice. Then, of course, the internet erased all frontiers between urban and countryside. Charming and sad in the same time, isn’t it?
As for Miercurea Ciuc, most people speak Hungarian as the city has a Székely (an ethnic subgroup of the Hungarian nation) majority. It’s definitely the North Pole of Romania in terms of coldness and, actually, there are some incredibly good vintage shops selling dirt-cheap Scandinavian stuff.