My passion for fashion started in 2014, when I got an internship at a fashion house in Bucharest. I studied Geography, and on paper I am an engineer in urbanism, so really, nothing to do with fashion, but it was my calling. In the beginning, I was supposed to go to the workshop for around 2 hours a day, to pick up some techniques.
But in reality, on the first day I spent 10 hours working, learning about patterns. And that is how everything started.
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Everyday I grew more fascinated and more attracted to the projects. My imagination roamed free, I was designing things in my mind and step by step they started to become reality and turn into real items. I was discovering that my senses were sharpened to feel fabrics and textures. This was what I did daily for a few months and I loved it. Everyday I was learning something new.
The first celebrity I interacted with was Loredana Groza. The team I was working with at the time was preparing all of her stage outfits for her early concert at Sala Palatului, in October 2014.
Back then, my entire universe was the workshop. I woke up with the workshop and I went to sleep with the workshop on my mind.I had a lot of work to do under a lot of pressure, but I had the same goal as the team: everything had to be perfect. Many of the clothing items were handmade, with a lot of applied shiny accessories. The keyword was “glamorous” and the clothes were much more complex than any other ready-to-wear item. T
hey were, after all, clothes made for The Queen of Romanian pop music, an equivalent of Madonna of Romania. It was a real pleasure to work for her, everything was challenging and limitless: everything had to be very creative, spectacular, original and unique. I was well aware about the requirements, I knew what I wanted to make but I didn’t know that I was about to be part of the backstage staff for the following concert. And the following event would shape my mission. While Loredana was making soundchecks she gave me a pair of Prada boots and she said: “Cut them, cut them now and use a thread to pull them together. They are too tight!. And there I was, holding a pair of Prada boots in my hands for the first time and all I could think was: “How on Earth will I pay for these if I destroy them?”. Loredana saw my shock and she said to me with a very calm voice: “I saw your work, I know you can make them look great. And if you destroy them, they’re just a pair of boots after all!” And I did it. While she was rehearsing in the background, I was heating up a needle using a cigarette lighter and I was piercing the boots, trying to make them look just as she wanted them.
There was a lot of behind the scene, everything we worked for was about to appear on stage, and the timing was 1 minute to change between outfits: everything from clothes, shoes, hairstyle accessories and make up. Every member of the team had very specific tasks, and Loredana had to look flawless every time she stepped back on the stage. After the last outfit, she invited the entire crew on the stage while the crowd was cheering and singing alongside her. Seeing her, I realized how much I love what I do. I realized that the best pay for my work is the happiness I see in a woman when she is wearing something that makes her look amazing. And then my wish became more clear and I said in my mind: “one day I will have my own workshop and my stage will be made of all the women that wear my clothes.” But first, I had to study and become better, so I started a clothes design program, I started to study the history of fashion, I took styling courses and I kept on working at that internship every day, even though I wasn’t getting paid. My satisfaction and my reward were all the things that I couldn’t have learned any other way. And I was more than grateful for that.