The Significant Importance of Fashion Design Students Like Lea Vrebac
Fashion students are the future of the fashion industry with their innovative ideas. Yet as they are blossoming into budding designers they are often overlooked until they become a big name. To their detriment, they do not have the backing of huge corporations investing in their work. However, this allows them to be more expressive with no bounds. We talk to Lea Vrebac a Fashion Design student at the Fashion Design Institut in Germany about what makes the fashion industry so influential in our society and how she managed to get Signia Hearing to a sponsor her fashion show at Paris Fashion Week.
Being a Fashion student, how would you describe yourself as a designer?
I have always been a very passionate and curious person. Paired with my continuous creativity I am an ambiguous Fashion student. My focus is not just on clothes but on designing and making masterpieces that tell stories. I thrive to create designs, which have not been seen before and should be considered as pieces of wearable Avant-Garde fashion. I want my designs to catch people’s attention and make them curious to know about the stories I am expressing.
You recently showcased your collection at Paris Fashion week to raise awareness on the social situation of the hearing impaired. Why is this an important issue for you and why did you feel a fashion collection was the best way to address it?
I have been hearing impaired since the age of six. A hearing aid has since then been a part of me. Many people are ashamed of their hearing aids and try to hide them as best as possible. I know how that feels. Various everyday situations like speaking on the phone or speaking to someone in a really noisy environment are hard for the hearing impaired. But one can also benefit from the advantages that come with this, like a very peaceful sleep without any snoring, a clock ticking or traffic noises. My fashion collection addresses these issues. Hearing aids can be very fashionable and unique accessories. I have been wearing them forever and want the world to realize that every hearing impaired is a normal, fashionable and loving person.
How did you manage to get Signia Hearing to sponsor your show?
I wanted to tell my fashion story about the hearing impaired on the International Hearing day on March 3rd in a fashion show in Paris. But as a student, I could not afford the costs of doing so and needed a sponsor to fund this. I decided to actively search for one. I designed a presentation introducing myself, my work and designs, and my design vision of fashionable hearing impaired. I identified 150 possible sponsors and sent all of them an email with my presentation and my plea to be sponsored. I got very positive feedback from some of them and found in “Signia hearing” a suitable main sponsor that loved the idea of combining hearing aids with fashion. They decided to sponsor a young unknown fashion student. I even became one of the faces in their campaign for their newest Styletto hearing aid. I was very honoured and thankful to be able to work with the Signia team. Signia was essential to making my dream come true.
What is it in your opinion that makes the fashion industry so influential to our society?
Fashion is a statement. You can express who you are, how you feel, whom you admire and who you want to be. The fashion industry enables the people to do so and to understand the messages and stories people tell. Many people do not have the creativity to express themself but by copying their role models fashion wise they send messages the society understands. With fashion, used as a display of your opinion, you can send a political statement, show which group you belong to, support or reject, greet your loved ones and show where you have been or want to travel to. A statement of fabrics, materials and designs. The fashion industry continuously creates the ever-changing always up to date toolbox to express yourself specialized for every culture, colour and location. Fashion is a global language!
