Photography by Vassilis Karidis
Damir Doma is not famous. He refuses to follow trends and avoids seeking attention for its own sake. Unlike most young, tailoring-obsessed menswear designers working today, Doma sculpts a soft, simple, yet imposing silhouette. More than simply making clothes, he is quietly sketching out the shape of a new kind of man. Croatian-born and German-raised, Doma studied fashion in Munich and then Berlin, and graduated in 2004 with honours for best collection. He then moved to Antwerp, where it did not take long for him to attract the attention of Raf Simons, whose work had exerted a profound influence over Doma’s own. Under Simons’ mentorship, Doma was encouraged to develop an intensely personal vision of masculinity; for him, fashion design is a means of exploring the fragile, ephemeral nature of the body. Despite its conceptual origins, Doma’s clothing is beautifully wearable, balancing the solemnity of heavy textiles with a feeling of freedom and fluidity. He showed his first menswear collection in 2007 and is about to launch a womenswear line next month, at Paris Fashion Week. But, he says, his eponymous label has never really aimed for commercial success – it’s actually “a huge art project”. Continue reading “Damir Doma talks to Filep Motwary”