Child's Play

When Danial Aitouganov and Imruh Asha met as students in Amsterdam in 2013, they dreamed of running a fashion label together. Since the two had neither industry experience nor a strong network of collaborators, they decided to hold off, going their separate ways to learn the inner workings of the fashion business before embarking on more ambitious endeavors.

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Then a fashion student at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute, Aitouganov was chosen to show his graduate collection at the prestigious Hyères Festival in 2017. He went on to hone his skills working under Natacha Ramsay-Levi at Chloé and Riccardo Tisci at Burberry. Meanwhile, Asha became one of fashion’s most in-demand stylists. He has styled covers for the world’s best arts and fashion publications and counts top luxury brands as clients.

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Last year, the duo finally made good on their promise to each other, as they debuted their first collection for Zomer at Paris Fashion Week. As expats living in Paris, the two wanted to reconnect with their Dutch upbringings as well as art from their homeland. “We’re both known for our childlike approach towards styling and design,” says Asha. “It’s a very Dutch thing if you look at the modernists like Piet Mondrian, Gerrit Rietveld, and Viviane Sassen.”

To generate pre-show momentum, the best friends—who regularly swim together on holiday in Croatia and dine together at Aux Mandarins de Belleville when at home in Paris—created a cheeky Instagram campaign. Photographed by Oliver Hadlee Pearch, it features some of the industry’s most famous personalities reimagined as kids, including makeup artist Pat McGrath, stylist Ib Kamara, and Anna Wintour.

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“We are not conceptual; we work with intuition,” says Aitouganov, who looks after design, while his partner oversees styling duties. “If you give a kid a pen and paper, he doesn’t have heavy concepts. He just starts [creating] from his heart and for the fun of it.” For clothing, this translates to items like cutaway skirts, patchwork dresses, and color-blocked pieces with button closure systems that invite wearers to reconfigure them. And then there are the wearable wooden sculptures made in collaboration with artist Amaury Darras that have been worn on stage by iconic Icelandic musician Björk. “This first season, it was liberating,” says Aitouganov. “It was a way for us to lay down our playful foundation. Later we will add concepts.”