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Glance around Fidan Novruzova’s office and you find yourself deep inside a wunderkammer of references and signs from the universe. The handle of an Art Deco vanity has a strange coincidence with a piece of jewellery from a previous season, and the book on the shelf has a serendipitous backstory too. You can’t quite shake the feeling that a lot is happening or, more accurately, that something is about to happen. Things have a way of finding their way into the Moldovan-Azerbaijani designer’s universe, each one an invitation to experiment and see where it might lead.

Fidan’s way of working is similarly intuitive. She might buy a fabric before she has a sketch, or follow a colour before she knows where it will take her. For her, creativity is almost physical: a feeling in her chest, a hue she can’t stop thinking about, an old man walking past the studio who suddenly sparks an idea. Six years into building her label, she has developed the confidence to recognise, and trust, what deserves to find its way in.

Albert Shyong: Where does a collection begin for you? Is it material, a story, a silhouette or something else?

Fidan Novruzova: It varies from season to season. I am someone who buys fabrics often before I have sketches or even any kind of 3D development, which some might find a bit of an odd way to develop and design a collection. But I feel like it’s been working for me.

Colour has been the starting point for both of these past two seasons, which is a new way of working for me. For Autumn Winter 2026, it was the work of French designer and perfumer Lolita Lempicka. For Spring Summer 2027, it’s another female artist, French-American Mara Goldberg. It’s all about colour, all about texture, and I’ve been really enjoying this new way of working.

Albert: Fabric seems really important to you. What qualities do you look for when you’re choosing one?

Fidan: The feeling of the fabric on your skin is super important. I work a lot with deadstock materials. The qualities would definitely be the tactile sensation, the sheerness of the fabric and the crease test. It’s all about choosing a fabric that’s going to last throughout seasons, throughout years in one’s wardrobe.

Albert: When you’re developing an idea, how do you know when it’s worth pursuing?

Fidan: Oftentimes, I feel like you won’t know if you don’t try. There could be a week of me hyper-fixating on an idea that feels so grand and right, and then by the end of this week, I realise maybe that it doesn’t work, or it’s something to be explored another season. There’s a great saying that my dad would say growing up, ‘Appetite comes during lunch.’

Albert: Do you ever get that moment when you’re experimenting and suddenly think, ‘Actually, this is a finished garment?’

Fidan: There’s a clear spark. It’s almost like a physical feeling in your chest when you just know. It almost sounds so romantic, but it is true. It’s such an intuitive process. You can have all kinds of rules and systems, but at the end of the day, it’s all about intuition and the joy of the spark.

Albert: Beyond visual art, where else do you find inspiration?

Fidan: There are definitely so many sources out there. In general, I have no rules. It could be a trip…somewhere, somehow. In Paris itself, I feel like there’s always someone. We started this season with colour, and one day an old man walked by our studio wearing exactly the colours of the collection. I took that as a sign, feeding into the existing moodboard just out there in the universe.

It’s truly everything. Maybe it sounds so obvious, but you just have to keep an open mind. There are also definitely some books that I love. I revisit Hans Eijkelboom’s work because it’s so improvised, like a reminder about the existence of all the clothing categories out there.

Albert: Do you ever feel limited by having too many possibilities, or do you prefer working within constraints?

Fidan: The truth is, you can’t start with constraints. There is this whole world in front of you, and you’re going to edit that world, and the way you edit defines your identity.

Albert: Speaking of identity, does your cultural background inform your work?

Fidan: In a very subconscious way, for sure. It’s my lived experience. There’s almost no way for that to have no effect on me creatively. In my earlier work, I dug deeper through my heritage. But somehow, throughout the past seasons, it has translated into a lived experience rather than a moodboard. I haven’t had a chance in the past few years to visit Azerbaijan, where my family’s from, but the cultural visuals are really finding their way back into my work.

Albert: You’ve been running the label for almost six years now. What has surprised you most about running an independent label?

Fidan: I probably won’t surprise anyone by saying that it’s very much running a business, but you also have to be the creative mind behind it. I obviously sometimes do wish I could dedicate even more time to the creative aspects and not as much to other sides, though I find doing both very stimulating.

Albert: How do you balance that creative freedom with the commercial realities of running a business?

Fidan: What I found that works for me and my brain is splitting things by days. I am not someone who can do both within the same day. It truly has to be a day where I don’t open the emails, I don’t reply to anyone’s texts, nothing. I listen to a nice playlist and purely focus on design. I call them the creative days.

Obviously, there are days when it’s impossible and you just kind of have to push yourself and do both. But whenever I can, it’s very important for me to have a split, because it’s such a physiological, anatomical phenomenon when your brain switches between the two. In the moment, your brain becomes very compartmentalised.

Albert: Has your understanding of your own aesthetic changed since you started the label?

Fidan: Absolutely, because I started my label when I was very young. I was only 25, so there’s an inevitable process of growth. The label just follows alongside you.

Albert: Are there any central ideas that have remained and tie all the collections together?

Fidan: Yes, but somehow hard for me to put it into words. I would still even reference not just my first season, but my work when I was still a student. If you look at my first-year school project and my 11th season, you can see that it’s done by the same person. It’s quite interesting because you do it so intuitively. Looking back, it’s a satisfying feeling, knowing that there is something that is just true to me and that accompanies me from season to season.

Albert: Let’s talk about the space we’re in right now, located in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. What does the studio mean to you?

Fidan: There are a lot of personal books, some production material, moodboards, press samples, prototypes. Before this, all of it was happening in my apartment in Paris, so I was, as you can imagine, over the moon to be able to move into this space.

It was such a journey finding the space, because Paris can be so expensive and tricky when it comes to commercial real estate. I had probably around 10 different spaces fall through, and they weren’t even perfect. And then the 11th one, which was my dream space, worked out.

Albert: Is this where all your moodboards live?

Fidan: Yes, because I really feel like it’s all about feeding your brain, and that’s how you shape yourself creatively. Sometimes it’s just being exposed to all these sources, and then when the time comes, your brain just puzzles things together. If you put the right ingredients in front of you, your brain will cook the meal.

Albert: Tell me about this book sitting in the middle here.

Fidan: I found it a week after we did our first big presentation in Paris for Spring Summer 2025. I’d actually gone to the Saint-Sulpice church with my best friend, we had a little prayer, I came out, and I saw this book and randomly picked it up. When I got home, I realised it had my presentation venue in it. Then, a year and a half later, I had this really important meeting, and I hadn’t touched the book in all that time. I opened it, and the building where I’d had the meeting was in it too. And wait, there’s more — our collection that season was called La Vitrine, and the book is called Vitrines de Paris [by André Barret]. It’s insane.

Albert: It really does feel like there are a lot of signs and symbols from the universe.

Fidan: I’m a big believer in those, so…

Albert: Right outside your office is the sewing machine. What’s the plan for the atelier?

Fidan: We’re at the beginning of the little atelier setup of our Paris HQ. I’m hoping, with time, to be able to grow and get more equipment in, because right now Paris is really the creative hub of the brand, where the ideas are born and tested. Here we understand if something works or not.

Albert: What are you most excited about working on right now?

Fidan: I’m very excited for this season because somehow there is so much space in my head for creativity. Maybe I can attribute it to the confidence you nurture season after season, because the truth is, when you start, you’re just scared. You know you’re creative and capable, but there’s just so much fear of the unknown. Now I’m much more comfortable with where I am creatively and as a brand. I feel so much braver to just try things and see where they take you. And I don’t take these things for granted because I’m just a girl from Moldova.