Fashion

Studio Asanawa | Lingerie Redefined

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Studio Asanawa is a multi-label luxury lingerie store in the UAE that espouses sustainable fashion practices. Showcasing small-scale brands across Europe, Studio Asanawa seeks to revive the waning textiles industry in Europe by creating a platform exclusively for artisanal, sustainable lingerie handmade in Europe. The result is an assemblage of exclusive, exquisitely crafted, delicate pieces on offer for the first time to Middle Eastern consumers.

 

Words/Salomé Aubergé

 

 

 

 

The concept was founded in 2018 by two pioneering creatives, Chantal Brocca and Najla Busit. Chantal Brocca is a fashion critic, cultural writer, creative director and stylist working between Paris, Milan and Dubai. Her body of work is oriented towards exposing the true face of the mainstream fashion industry and exploring the world of sustainable consumerism.

Najla Busit is an Emirati museum professional working for art fairs, Christie’s and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. In parallel to this, she has been building a personal collection of hand crafted lingerie pieces from all over the world since she was 16. The two women met at a dance class age 14, before crossing paths more than a decade later to found Studio Asanawa, after realising they shared a passion for culture, fashion and the arts.

Studio Asanawa sources its lingerie from ateliers across Europe, where craftsmen work solo or in small teams to ethically produce standout items of exceptional quality. Artisans respect the values of traditional small batch production, using locally sourced fabrics and adopting hand worked embroidery techniques. The result is a product that oozes sophistication, flair, and immaculate artistry.

With co-founder Chantal Brocca being an ardent supporter of sustainable fashion initiatives and an active member of Fashion Revolution UAE, conscious consumerism and design is firmly at the core of the multi-label lingerie concept.

By choosing to advocate for sustainable fashion by employing traditional, ethical, slow fashion production techniques, the studio is bringing sartorial heritage back into the 21st Century, reminding us that there can, and has been an alternative to fast fashion.

Studio Asanawa is all about building bridges, bridges between past and present, East and West, encapsulating the multi-cultural spirit and activist vigour of 2018.

 

 

One of the brands under the Asanawa umbrella is Tisja Damen. Based in a beautiful old warehouse in the heart of Amsterdam, Tisja Damen is a champion of slow fashion. Taking its time to source fabrics from the finest artisanal hubs across Europe, from French silk straps and Dutch cotton to Italian leavers lace, the brand settles for no less than the highest quality materials for its delicate creations.

Another brand to be represented by Studio Asanawa is Studio Pia, a fully sustainable luxury label based in the UK. The designer behind the brand translates her favourite artworks, by artists such as Henri Rousseaux and Gustav Klimt, into elegant designs for all shapes and sizes.

Combining bespoke French embroidery, 24k gold adorning hardware and organic peace silk, the brand challenges preconceptions about what constitutes sustainable fashion with its innovative, impeccably crafted pieces of artistry.

 

To know more about Studio Asanawa, click here

Photography credits/Mohammad Murad // @holgamaniac
Model/Dasha Plotnikova // @dariaploty
Styling/Chantal Brocca @chantalbrocca +  Najla Busit @najlabusit