Fashion Designer To Watch Out For In 2022: Meet The Talented Alexandra Moura

Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Alexandra Moura creates contemporary avant-garde collections for men and women that reflect her personality and creativity. Leading the charge for Portuguese arts and culture alongside current-day contemporaries, Moura takes a fearless approach to fashion with a focus on artistic expression and an offbeat spirit. Moura’s collections are traditional fashion reinterpreted with an artistic vision that makes them intriguing, dynamic, and downright fun.

Working beyond everyday style, Alexandra Moura’s work is exploratory, seeking to approach clothing in a new way. Pushing beyond the stereotypes of gender and the conventional use of fabric and print, her work leans towards the avant-garde, reflecting a love of Japanese fashion design that captured her mind as a teenager. This influence shines through in Moura’s work, where classic tailoring is reimagined in playful, textured fabrics, and silhouettes are tweaked to create bold and exaggerated shapes. Each collection is at once eccentric and wearable, infused with a sense of subversiveness. Each season, Alexandra Moura’s design team explores the idea of opposing forces coming together, playing with contrasting ideas, textures, and references. Romanticism is bound together with the urban, classic looks are clashed with iconic sportswear details, and classically feminine looks are subverted with the masculine. Unabashedly romantic and artistic, the collections draw distinct parallels with the cultural mood of Portugal, which is renowned for its romantic, melancholic spirit. Alexandra Moura’s collections are timeless and seasonless driven by conceptual exploration rather than conventional trends. Moura’s collections find a natural home in the wardrobes of those with a keen eye for detail, an appreciation for fine craftsmanship, and an independent spirit. Each collection brings Moura’s inspiration to life as a collage of fabrics and colours, combining sheer knits and textured fabrics with a considered eye and sense of proportion that makes every it desirable, covetable and collectible. With a highly creative mind and witty approach to design, each Alexandra Moura collection is considered an artistic expression, designed to embolden the wearer with a sense of strength, independence, and individuality.

Alexandra is a leading Portuguese designer with a truly collaborative spirit; outside of her brand Alexandra Moura engages with projects including costume design and teaching the Masters course in Fashion Design – Fashion Design Atelier Project at the Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas – Castelo Branco In 2015, Moura was distinguished with the Women Culture Creators Award, presented by the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality, the Secretary of State for Culture’s offices and Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Equal Opportunities. The honorees are recognized based on criteria including relevance and coherence, innovation and pioneering character of artistic activity, as well as the cultural impact of the work produced. As an industry mentor to emerging design talent, Moura enjoys invitations to speak at conferences and exhibitions, including MUDE – Museum of Design and Fashion and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Chiado. In 2018 Alexandra Moura won the golden globe in the category of the best fashion designer in Portugal, and 2019 is marked by the AW19/20 and SS20 collections at the Milan Fashion Week official calendar. In 2019, she was the designer chosen by the Decenio brand for a partnership, thus giving rise to the brand #DECENIOALEXANDRAMOURA, where the Summer 20 collection was presented at ModaLisboa. With this partnership, she won the Business Excellence Awards in the Brand Award category awarded by ModaPortugal and CENIT. 2020 was also marked by an invitation to be the creative director of MOCHE. During 2020 and 2021, she regularly presents his collections at Milan Fashion Week

StarCentral magazine recently caught up with Alexandra to discuss her journey in the fashion industry, and here’s what went down:

How did you get into the fashion industry?

During a trip to London in the 90s (in there was no internet at the time), I found two heads that messed with mine; Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo. It all made sense; after all, I wasn’t such a wild animal! And so, from the sciences, I threw myself headlong into the world of the arts and went to Fashion Design, where I remain to this day.

What do you like most about being a designer?

Having the opportunity to be able to communicate with the world everything that goes inside me through clothing design.

Downside to being a fashion designer?

It is an extremely demanding profession in creative terms. We often feel exhausted.

What has been the most memorable experience of being in the fashion industry so far?

One of the most incredible experiences was being able to present the collection in the official Milan Fashion Week calendar, among others.

Who have been the most interesting people you’ve met so far?

Suzy Menkes.

What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned while in the fashion industry. This can be about the industry or about yourself.

Trust your vision!

Is your family supportive of you being a fashion designer?

Yes, always supportive. My husband works at the company, and our son Rodrigo supports us 100%.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what would you do differently?

Maybe we would have tried the brand internationalization sooner.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Don’t make plans for life, so you don’t spoil the plans that life has for you.

What are your future plans? Inside your career or out of it.

Continuing to be in fashion for pleasure and leaving my views on fashion and the topics I address to others.