“My name is Dejan Kovacevic, I am a Serbian born fashion designer. Most of my professional engagement I have been living and working in Italy, where I have also studied fashion design on IUAV (Istituto universitario di architettura di Venezia). I have starded my carreer at “Atelier Settecento” in Venice-Italy, which leds me to become a member of a small team of designers at womenswear design team of Dolce & Gabbana in Milan-Italy. Dejan Del Fabbro is a young brand, we started our fashion journey in September 2016. We focus on womenswear pret-a-porter making unique and distinctive products such as silk dresses, jackets ecc. The main focus in our collections is the print design which is always hand-painted motivs designed in house and printed in Italy in the region of lake Como. We are a small team of 5 employees, with myself as the head of design team working on our expancion in Europe and China markets.”
What’s the concept of your latest collection?
The title of our latest collection is “When Lilac’s bloom” and it is based on the Greek myth about Panes and a beautiful nymph Syringa. My intention was to capture the moment when Syringa turned herself in a tree of Lilacs when Panes was chasing her in the woods after he madly fell in love with her (Syringa is latin name for the Lilac flower). That moment is particulary interesting for me because it captures three of very important life facts – love, fear and beauty, that collided in a fantastic representation and interesting end.
What inspires you the most?
Generaly talking everything can potentitaly inspire me, but most of all I am inspired by nature. I am a visual type of person, so almost anything that catches my eye can be translated in a, let’s say, bias cut flowy red carpet dress for Anne Hathaway. The important thing is to keep your eyes opened, because the fusion of color and form can be found in most unexpected moments that can brig a vision to life. I am also very much interested in urban culture and sociology, a lot of my final decisions in design find their origin in this particular interest of mine. At the end of the day, when we finish the collection I ask myself first is this relevant enough, and if so, is it moving forward the boundaries of craftsmenship and design.
How do you choose your materials and fabrics and how do you work with them?
I am very lucky to have a good collaboration with Italian manufacturers and suppliers, that’s why I can make products of high quality. Usually we search for something that is as close as possible to my initial sketches and ideas, but usually me and my team find some fantastic new textures or finishings on textiles, and we obviously fall in love with them and include them in collections.
What’s the hardest thing about the fashion industry?
I guess the hardest thing is keeping it all managable and in controll because, as we all know, fashion is not just about pretty clothes. After you design you need to think is this going to be sold good, after you make a textile order you think is this order going to come in time, then there is PR, celebrity clients, showrooms, fashion fairs ecc. For me personally, the hardest thing is to keep it all together and manage every process professionaly. But at the end of the day, the experience is always very rewarding, when you work with people and see your product on a customer walking down the street.
What’s your next project?
We are planing to present our new collection in Milan during fashion week on a fashion fair. We have a very interesting collaboration on our way with a streetstyle brand from Belgrade Serbia, and some more celebrities to dress, also a potentitial big collaboration for Asian market. Generally, we are always interested in new interesting projects and moving forward exploaring new horizons.