There was a time when (Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 36 years old) was afraid of becoming someone he was not. , when he realized that his sneaker collaborations with the Japanese brand Asics had become so popular that, if he had wanted to, he could have become a sneaker designer. sneakers. But that was not his intention. “People like to pigeonhole you and I didn’t want to be in a box, but in the center of the room, to go wherever I wanted,” explains the designer via videoconference from his workshop in London. “The solution was to stop doing that collaboration. For four or five years we stopped showing sneakers in our shows, because all the sports brands were collaborating with designers and it had become boring.”
In 2025 it is easy to see that the turn of the helm paid off. In 2020 Kostadinov. Only clothes, only own collections. He opened an office in the French capital and inaugurated his first two stores, in Tokyo and Los Angeles. “Things come as they come, and when it’s time to grow, it’s time to grow,” he reflects. “Now is the time to continue moving forward while still having fun and getting excited about our work. Next year we turn 10 years old and this is starting to feel like a job, although I insist that it continues to be a tool to document my daily life. This brand is like my personal diary.”
Kostadinov was born in and lived there until he was 16 years old. His father worked in construction and his mother babysat and cleaned. “It took me a long time to know what fashion was. I was more interested in dressing, buying clothes, finding my own style. An uncle of mine who lived in the United Kingdom started sending me clothes when I was 13 years old. They were sportswear from brands like Diesel or Energy, and I was the only one in the class who dressed like that. At that time I didn’t think that one could dedicate themselves to designing clothes. But I was interested in style. I liked to mix things. That’s why at first I thought I would dedicate myself to styling. But someone told me that, if I wanted to do fashion, . And I insisted on it.”
His arrival at the London design school was arduous; It took him a while to be admitted and, when he finally enrolled, he didn’t waste a minute. In the classrooms he first heard about Martin Margiela, or Rick Owens. And he immersed himself in the capital’s art scene. “I came from a small town in Bulgaria, and in London there was art and culture everywhere. During my studies I tried to absorb as much culture as possible. In addition, mine was one of the last classes to study,” he says, alluding to the legendary director of the educational center who sponsored Alexander McQueen and Christopher Kane.
In the men’s fashion master’s degree he began to rediscover his roots. “My tutors encouraged me to find my point of view, to question myself about my history,” he recalls. “But it took me several years to start alluding to Bulgaria in my collections, and I did it through small notes. I never wanted the brand to revolve around my experience as an immigrant, because it’s not a big deal, there are thousands of immigrants doing incredible things.”
But there is always something left. In his men’s fashion collection for this fall there are details inspired by the stamped ornaments of Bulgarian bank checks from the late 1920s. What looks like a knee or elbow pad from afar is revealed up close as a lace appliqué with baroque shapes. “It’s much more interesting than stamping something you found in a bookstore in London.” Once again, the focus returns to the garments. “At the end of the day, if someone likes our clothes, they like it, that’s it. They don’t need an essay or a biography.”
His arrival in fashion was a rapid success. “Nothing was the result of a decision. It just happened. When my classmates were finishing their portfolios, I was already celebrating my first fashion show. I didn’t look for a job or do internships at big brands. I had no choice but to create my brand,” he says. It arrived at the exact moment. At a time when media attention was focused on the big signings of luxury brands, men’s brands were filled with sometimes anonymous, utilitarian and sophisticated garments. While critics debated the epistemology of the silk blouse, work clothes became the daily uniform of the creative class. Kostadinov, unlike other competitors, did not bill nostalgic replicas. His thing was to deconstruct, redesign, turn around. At first I bought catalogs from manufacturers in Europe and Japan. Then the visits that were not on the internet began. “When you compete with designers who have been in the industry for 20 years, you can’t show up with a collection inspired by Matisse or Ellsworth Kelly, you have to bring something real. A new energy,” he explains. That passion for the archive is still present. “Right now I am surrounded by racks with clothes that are not mine. I look at them and study.”
When Kostadinov burst onto the catwalks, he began collaborating with the Majorcan brand Camper and also with the trench coat brand Mackintosh. Then came Asics, for which he continues to design the Novalis line today. “Those collaborations gave me a good foundation to have my own studio and hire two or three people, and continue growing from there,” says Kostadinov. “There is no master plan. The only important thing is the design. Without design nothing else would exist. The number one priority is that, spending time working on the tests, designing.”
That may be the key to its solidity. Kostadinov has never limited himself to putting a logo on a t-shirt. Their garments are a love letter to design. Analyzed closely, they reveal: As if a pair of cargo pants had fallen down Alicia’s rabbit hole. They are high-end fashion with a street vocation. And they also reveal a self-demand that is not at all complacent. He emerged disenchanted from his first foray into women’s fashion and, in 2018, brought in Australian sisters Laura and to design his women’s collections.
Each season, her collections incorporate fabrics, colors or finishes with which she experiments for the first time. “We try to do new things instead of finding a formula that works and replicating it. I like to design as if no one knows us, as if each collection was the first and we had everything to prove.” Today his brand is experiencing a decisive and unpredictable moment at the same time, like fashion itself. “People complain a lot about fashion deadlines, but that’s exactly what interests me,” he replies. “I love that our ideas are valid for six months. Each idea is conceived and materialized at a certain time. Sometimes the public does not understand it immediately and customers come in who want to buy our clothes from four years ago. I try to make stores and customers understand that each season’s clothes will probably not be produced again.” A mutual fund would raise eyebrows, but that’s one of the advantages of being your own boss. “I don’t want other people to decide what my brand is or isn’t, because not even I know. Our only rule is to design things that excite us and entertain us and don’t make us lazy. This is a business, but I like to think that, above all, it is a job. And my job is to design.”
