Mitichi Preda

Thank you for having me, for being close to our projects, and for supporting independent fashion. It is indeed a very busy time for us because the latest edition of Feeric Fashion Week was a huge success in terms of what we delivered to the audience but also about the real opportunities we offered to designers. However, I cannot say I have taken any brake so far as Feeric has become an ongoing project, transforming from a fashion week to a Hub. Feeric is the Romanian word for "magic," but after the pandemic, the word became the shortcut for Fashion Entrepreneurship Education for Romanian and International Creators. Feeric Hub is mostly a mission to change for the better the future of the industry, and we are glad to say our first moves have great results.

Each Feeric Fashion Week is now concluding a new stage of the Feeric Hub development, and this year we were glad to host designers from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, and North Africa. These regions are the first to respond to our call to be part of the educational program and take advantage of the opportunities we are offering to designers. About 138 designers were showcasing their creativity through individual or collective collections,as part of competitions or projects that displayed their work. The shows were not only classic catwalks or Feeric signature shows, but they were built around deep social messages, sending strong statements to the world or to the fashion industry leaders. Ukrainian Fashion Education Group show was settled in a bunker, showing everyone the power of creativity to go on no matter what. Hooldra project brought together for the fourth-year young designers to create under the Fluid Geometry theme a new upcycled collection with no fur included, presented in a pump track, looking like a fluid runway. 

This is our sixteenth year of doing Feeric, and it feels like we never stopped. This is also because the preparation process starts with the September fashion week season, when we travel to Paris and Milan to meet our collaborators and members of our team, to see professionals at work, and to learn. Then, with all the information updated, we start sketching the next edition of Feeric Fashion Week because it is happening once a year. October means always the start of a new educational stage, so we are visiting fashion design universities in different countries, doing masterclasses, and connecting with future designers, professors, and deans. This way we understand what challenges they face and exchange the results of the research process made by all the parts to find solutions. February means another visit to Milan and Paris to set the collaborations for the next edition. Then the educational program continues in parallel with the designer's submission evaluation and selection. The new locations are settled between April and July, and all other preparations are made for the third week of July, when Feeric Fashion Week is happening. So this is the whole process in a few words. Easy right?

I could say that apart from the team motivation, the goal we want to achieve, and the county of Sibiu as the stage for all the projects, everything has changed. We started for fun, with one only fashion show in the centre of the city in 2008. Then, the interest created in the project increased exponentially, so we did it again in a different way and bigger. Then we moved to three days of shows, then six days of fashion events, and then here we are slowly but surely coming to this magnitude of being named the most important fashion project in this part of the world.

The bunker and the pump track were chosen to strengthen the messages of the collection presented, and usually, this is the way we match the locations with the collections. But of course it is in our DNA to make sure we choose some unexpected locations to amaze the internet and to offer the participants a whole experience. Every year we have some new locations, but the locations that might look the same are not. The name of the location might sound familiar, like Promenada Sibiu or Boromir Mill and Sweets Factory; also, Feeric Venue is a place you constantly see on the schedule alongside Piata Huet for the ending gala. The fact is none of them looks the same because we are making new sets that are always recycled, and some of them are huge, allowing us to choose a different venue every year. The new ones attached were the karting circuit, the interior of the Brukenthal National Museum, and the luggage belt of the Sibiu Airport. And of course the bunker and the pump track that also hosted the MDVTM collective collection.

Yes, they did, and it was an amazing collection displayed by the young designers of UAD. The high level of security in an airport makes all of us deal with top requests from all the institutions involved, but it is not our first time to do this, and due to our very good relations with all the authorities in the county and due to our credibility gained following professionalism and experience, it all went smoothly. All the approvals for all the locations are not easy to get, but we have a whole year to do so, and there were so many collections matching perfectly the venues. For example, Dualitae, a Romanian brand, opened the venue of the Gothic all from the museum, followed by the Croatian designer Vicko Racetin. Lithuanian designers Alina Kusaitė and Dovilė Deveikytė both presented individual collections among the karts ready for racing, and Olari Cezara’s collection from Moldova closed the Venom Karting circuit.

I already named a few of the designers, so I would like to tell you they come from different countries, different cultures, and different economies, but they are all facing the challenge of making a name for themselves on their own country market and also on the international market. The education process includes information and solutions for this, and that’s why designers are joining our hub. As for this edition of the fashion week, Feeric Venue hosted the collections of Netkaldesigns from Poland, Bulgarian National Academy of Arts, Newgiza Egypt, Christina Manelidi Designs from Crete, Macedonia-International Balkan University, NBU Bulgaria, Alexandra Tigaeru from Romania, Aurel Vlaicu University Arad, Ceban Laurentia from Moldova, and Galala Egypt. The spectacular venue of the Boromir factory was the set for Kinga Palider from Poland, Universitatea Tehnica Moldova, and Ana Majdandžić from Croatia. The list goes on because I would like to name all the designers, so Albanian designers Xh.M and Francesco Berati showcased two individual collections inside the Brukenthal National Museum alongside Romanian designer Teodora Ciorna. Feeric Gala included ten shows being opened by the Unarte collective collection. Then, from Serbia, three designers showcased their collections: Isidora Petrović, Marko Ječmenica and Aleksandra Perovic. Istituto Europeo di Design displayed a collective collection, and the gala continued with Daiana Stăncioiu from Romania, Triamia from Greece, International Design Academy from India, and Usmanova Munira from Uzbekistan, while Anelle Maison, a Romanian brand, closed this 16th edition of Feeric Fashion Week.

During the pandemic, we noticed more designers were failing to stay in the industry. Most of them went broke and were forced to find new jobs. They closed their ateliers, and it was difficult to see real talented designers working as salespersons for fast fashion brands. Yes, it was and is the reality nowadays. That was the trigger to make a real change. For so many years we helped designers to stay on the market, to expose them in international press and context, to offer commercial opportunities, and then, after years of not being able to evolve, they struggled to survive. We took then these help and opportunities to the educational level where people are into learning. So, due to huge research done by the Feeric team, we understood that not only our Balkans region is in this situation, so we extended our influence to other four regions that face the same fashion industry challenges. We now have forty universities on board to follow our Feeric Hub strategy of learning about entrepreneurship in fashion for the best professionals in the industry, and we facilitate this interaction. More than this, together with NEPI Rockcastle, we are offering step-by-step access to commercial opportunities and to more exposure. This is our next goal: to make a functional microsystem in the fashion industry and then to expand it. So far we have done that with our city community. Almost nothing happened in fashion when we started in 2008, and now there are several local and Romanian designer stores in a small city, and people consume local and individual fashion. This is something that happened naturally due to our activities, and we thought, "What if we push to this path? And what if we make it bigger?"

For our first stage, we valued our experience and resources, so we started our tour to universities in Romania, Croatia, Greece, and Poland, which, after offering results, went on and started to connect online with the rest of the educational institutions. Then we linked our professional connections and started to have stronger content to deliver to the students and young designers. This year we created two days dedicated to fashion entrepreneurship education, and we started with the workshops by Istituto Europeo di Design and the University of Westminster. Then Sara Sozzani Maino from Fondazione Sozzani, the founder of Vogue Talents, spoke to the audience, and she was a big help during the development of our project, offering exposure to young designers. Roxana Baias, head of group marketing at NEPI Rockcastle, talked about the commercial opportunities a young designer has in this economy and how they need to be ready for the challenges in business. Donald Gjoka from Coeval Studio Milano was explaining how AI tools can assist the creative process, and Ovidiu Buta, an international stylist, held a masterclass about how you sell fashion through the way you expose it. Andreea Tanasescu, the founder of La Blouse Roumain organisation, is fighting against the big luxury brands' ways of using and not giving credit to artisans' work and to national heritage. Landiana Cerciu, vice president of Feeric Fashion Week, was talking about sustainability in fashion, and Mira Postolache, professor at Moodart Verona, talked about marketing in fashion. I am also involved in teaching during our university tour, and I am mentoring the winners of the competitions organised by IED and Feeric, where we are also awarding free scholarships to the winners.

First of all, the way the economy functions for the market defines an important part of what fashion will look like. The circular economy is vital, and I think it will strengthen sooner rather than later. The market is now spread between the poor and the rich, with a narrower middle class. Local designers face big costs for production, marketing, and selling, which means the final price of the item is way over the market. I think that a wider middle class will be the right solution for designers, but they need to understand that they need to make it wider. Finding supplying cheaper solutions, thinking about the importance of marketing and creating communities, producing and selling to the proximity, and counting on a whole experience will be part of the solution. We can teach them, explain, and offer opportunities in all these fields. We did this for us already, and we can spread the knowledge. This is the way for a brighter fashion industry future, and I can see this happening in the next three to five years. We have already started this process, so I know exactly what I am talking about.

When I am thinking of sustainability, I have mixed feelings and ideas. The population on the planet is growing exponentially, and so is consumption, which is part of the pollution. So for me, being sustainable means first to keep things micro, local, and under control. This is for sure a strong, responsible feeling for each of the players, so I encourage designers to think about all details while they are building their brand and to try to keep things as close to them as possible—both geographical and economical. Digitalisation is a huge help for them to research, to be assisted in business decisions and administrations, and most importantly, to expose what they do. There is such a big need to teach them how to relate to sustainability and digitalisation because they are sometimes lost in the quantum of the information they get and the speed it is updating.

Digitalisation is the next step for sure, but in a productive way. We would like to facilitate free access to the information for students attending our partners—universities, faculties, and other educational institutions. We are up to build more partnerships, and through a validation digital process, we can create access to all the information, masterclasses, competitions, and marketing and commercial opportunities for emergent designers. And then the fashion week will conclude the yearly cycle. So, the first thing is to enlarge the partnerships and then move all resources online.

I can’t say it's only Eastern Europe that's very attractive for its talents; all other regions we are influencing with our program are the same. And the fact is, except in Western Europe, the USA, Canada, a small part of Asia, and maybe Australia, there is the same situation in the fashion industry. The rest of the world is attractive for the labour force, talent (which also ends as the labour force), and consuming market. But I know things are getting better, and the only way they can become better is through education. I know it is happening already, but we want to cover the post-educational process with more education. Let’s say the industry is healing and the new waves understand better their paths.

I am constantly invited to attend fashion weeks, and I try to reach as many as possible. Although a fashion week is not the solution for designers, they are, in my opinion, the last thing a designer needs to think about. First, they need to care more about cost, quality, and target, and then about displaying the collection. If they understand the first part, then they will choose and invest in the right fashion week after. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet noticed a fashion week to build a constantly helpful structure for designers around it, except the big four.

I can tell you it will be bigger in numbers and results. More designers will attend, more days dedicated to shows and education, a larger audience, and more guests. More opportunities will be created meanwhile, so the next edition will be a happy place for designers because they may take advantage of all the opportunities we will create for them.

Learn more! Listen, research, and work with the information. Don’t just use your creativity to create, but to adapt. Understand what you need to adapt to and use your creativity to find solutions. We are here to help you in this process and to guide you if you feel you need us.