Bio -
Sophia Chantal Zarifopoulos is a Greek American designer from New York now based in Athens. She recently showcased her first collection “The Reigning Balkan Princess” at Athens Fashion Week where she won the Best New Designer Award. She thrifts vintage lace and table cloths known as “Semedakia” and “mandilakia” in Greek. She then upcycles them and infuses them with her love and with her whimsy. She gifts them a new life full of fun, movement, and Balkan maximalism.
Her second collection debuting at Vancouver Fashion Week is called “The Jungle Feveress”. It highlights theoretical main female protagonists that could be found in the jungle with a fashion fever. It’s messy, almost unfinished, torn, beautifully ruthless. It is fiercely female, showing how to take the fear out of being female, because once you do, the jungle is yours. Your scars, your flaws, your unfinished story, are all waiting to be claimed beautifully by you. Don’t hide them, strut IN them.
Please share a bit about your journey to embrace fashion design as a career. Looking back, were there any early signs fashion would be your future?
From as early as five years old I would beg my mom to let me pick out my clothes for the next day at school. Clothing was my first artistic medium, my first love. One of my greatest forever joys in life has been getting dressed and letting each outfit express a different feeling of mine. Fashion has always been my life. My past, my present, my future. It’s me. It’s what my life has always revolved around.
How did you learn your skills?
I took a couple sewing classes back in New York before moving to a small island in Greece to buckle down and perfect my skills. My sewing classes were ultimately unsuccessful until my mother’s neighbor gave me some private instruction. The rest was really self taught. I spent 6 months sewing for hours a day, just figuring it out. And I did. I had no pattern paper, no real scissors, no dress form, not even a full length mirror. I had a tiny pair of cosmetic scissors and a dream. I would cut fabric on my floor or my bed, I would wrap it around myself to measure. Complete chaos. Absolute anarchy. But it worked. Somehow. Someway. And that’s how I know magic is real.
Once I moved to my family home in Greece for a brief interim after my sewing sabbatical, I got some proper materials including a dress form. That’s where I discovered draping. My life changed from there on out. I was enamored. I then moved to Athens to (briefly) study fashion design (one semester) before realizing it wasn’t for me. I really just like doing it the way I want and hate all the rules and regulations that come along with school and “studying”. I like to learn, hate to study. I still have no idea how to do certain seams or stitches or whatever but I don’t care. I have my way and it works for me and I love what I make and how I make it.
Who are you as a designer? Aesthetic? Customer? Brand?
I’m not really a designer. I’m an artist who makes clothes. I’m a clothing maker. I don’t sketch, I don’t use a pattern (absolutely despise making them), I don’t conceptualize. I gather materials and I assemble them. I use draping and moulage. I’m rogue. My aesthetic I would say at the moment is Balkan Boho Chic. My customer is the girl who wants to stand out and feels neither fear nor shame doing so. She’s looking for one of a kind because that’s what she is. She knows exactly who she is. I don’t know if I exist as a brand yet. Just pieces of that makes sense. I’m all over the place right now and being a brand is too cohesive, too restrictive, I don’t wanna be in a box right now in my life. I’m still exploring my freedom as an artist. Afterall I only discovered I was one about 4 years ago. I’m still marinating.
What comes easiest for you as a designer? What is hardest?
What comes easiest is the creation. What comes hardest is the dedication to finishing that creation. (I have ADHD)
Where do you find inspiration for new collections? How important is color to your design process?
I have never been someone who finds inspiration outside of herself. It always comes from within somehow some way. From my life, my thoughts, my memories, my subconscious, I don’t know. Going to a museum tomorrow won’t make me make a dress based on my experience there the next day. When I need inspiration it’s just to inspire me to keep going, to feel alive and fulfilled, not to direct me towards what I should be creating. Color is something that either reveals itself as an important factor along the way or not, it chooses you. I never set out with the intention of, “oh let’s do color for this!”. It either happens naturally or it doesn’t. I let my hands guide the way, nothing is preplanned, it all just happens in a flow state. I am divinely guided.
Readers would love to know more about the collection you are showing at Vancouver Fashion Week FW 26. Do you have a favorite look in this collection?
I’m just obsessed with the jungle. Things around me keep turning into one. My home, my environment, my style, my taste in music. I like messy, fierce, daring, rough, raw. There are hints of greens and browns, pinks and creams. Floral moments throughout. My favorite look is the first one I made that basically inspired the rest of the collection. It’s the Jungle Bride. You will see her I promise.
Where can readers purchase your designs?
Readers can purchase my designs directly through me at this time, on Vinted and Depop, or at a store in Athens called Piracy Vintage.
What's next for you as a designer and your brand?
I have absolutely no freaking idea.
Links -
Please share a bit about your journey to embrace fashion design as a career. Looking back, were there any early signs fashion would be your future?
From as early as five years old I would beg my mom to let me pick out my clothes for the next day at school. Clothing was my first artistic medium, my first love. One of my greatest forever joys in life has been getting dressed and letting each outfit express a different feeling of mine. Fashion has always been my life. My past, my present, my future. It’s me. It’s what my life has always revolved around.
How did you learn your skills?
I took a couple sewing classes back in New York before moving to a small island in Greece to buckle down and perfect my skills. My sewing classes were ultimately unsuccessful until my mother’s neighbor gave me some private instruction. The rest was really self taught. I spent 6 months sewing for hours a day, just figuring it out. And I did. I had no pattern paper, no real scissors, no dress form, not even a full length mirror. I had a tiny pair of cosmetic scissors and a dream. I would cut fabric on my floor or my bed, I would wrap it around myself to measure. Complete chaos. Absolute anarchy. But it worked. Somehow. Someway. And that’s how I know magic is real.
Who are you as a designer? Aesthetic? Customer? Brand?
I’m not really a designer. I’m an artist who makes clothes. I’m a clothing maker. I don’t sketch, I don’t use a pattern (absolutely despise making them), I don’t conceptualize. I gather materials and I assemble them. I use draping and moulage. I’m rogue. My aesthetic I would say at the moment is Balkan Boho Chic. My customer is the girl who wants to stand out and feels neither fear nor shame doing so. She’s looking for one of a kind because that’s what she is. She knows exactly who she is. I don’t know if I exist as a brand yet. Just pieces of that makes sense. I’m all over the place right now and being a brand is too cohesive, too restrictive, I don’t wanna be in a box right now in my life. I’m still exploring my freedom as an artist. Afterall I only discovered I was one about 4 years ago. I’m still marinating.
What comes easiest for you as a designer? What is hardest?
What comes easiest is the creation. What comes hardest is the dedication to finishing that creation. (I have ADHD)
Where do you find inspiration for new collections? How important is color to your design process?
Readers would love to know more about the collection you are showing at Vancouver Fashion Week FW 26. Do you have a favorite look in this collection?
I’m just obsessed with the jungle. Things around me keep turning into one. My home, my environment, my style, my taste in music. I like messy, fierce, daring, rough, raw. There are hints of greens and browns, pinks and creams. Floral moments throughout. My favorite look is the first one I made that basically inspired the rest of the collection. It’s the Jungle Bride. You will see her I promise.
Where can readers purchase your designs?
Readers can purchase my designs directly through me at this time, on Vinted and Depop, or at a store in Athens called Piracy Vintage.
What's next for you as a designer and your brand?
I have absolutely no freaking idea.
Links -
- Instagram - @!sophiazarz ~ @thereigningbalkanprincess
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