For Osman Yousefzada, the transformative power of clothing is everything.
London based designer Osman Yousefzada is known for his signature sharp silhouettes and pared down elegance. His ability to adapt his key styles each season – cigarette trousers, curved hems and dramatic collared jackets and coats – to fabrics varying from the finest jerseys to organic wool boucle is becoming more identifiable as his own each season.
The use of opulent oriental style brocade in his current AW12 collection is sure to be a talking point with the fashion pack worldwide, as it drops in stores this month in time for fall. Sourced at a small family owned mill in Spain, the brocade from the collection is loomed completely by hand before being delivered to his London studio. Here, his highly skilled seamstresses masterfully create each individual piece. Despite stocking in over 30 countries, the designer still manufactures every garment in the tiny downstairs workroom of his small London studio. With 15% of his clients bespoke, he is still very hands on and inspired.
Osman tells Fashion Editor at Large: I grew up watching women coming and going from my mothers workroom…I think that is why I love dressing women, and no two are the same…I know the transformative power of well cut clothes, and I guess what I do is work with my experience of women to create the right clothes for them.”
Strong, powerful women such as the prime ministers wife Samantha Cameron, Vogue editor Sarah Mower, and influential art collector Valeria Napoleone are huge advocates of his work due to his hand crafted, personalized touch as well as his ability to drape and flatter a woman.
His strongest offerings from the collection include the strapless brocade dress paired with brocade pants, and the full head to toe look of clashing brocade with a pop of leather (pictured above). Potentially overpowering, Osman still makes this fabric choice work, as he maintains his sharp tailoring and purity of line throughout each piece in the collection.
Here are a few more pieces we love from his AW 12 collection:
