Chopova Lowena (Q2758)
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Chopova Lowena is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Chopova Lowena |
Chopova Lowena is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
There is nothing in the wide world of fashion like the stomp and the swirl of the Chopova Lowena sisterhood in action. Back in London, in the crumbling underground basement of old Shoreditch Town Hall, the packed scene was one of the collective conventions of fans and friends that only these two can raise.The women of the Victorian Wild West were the inspiration behind this gathering in the wild east of London. Emma Chopova spent a slice of her formative years in the States. “We’re looking at America because of, I guess, my American upbringing, but it’s a weird take, where it’s about female folk heroines of the American West, like Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane. And the woman who brought cancan to America.” This was in a preshow Zoom conversation. Laura Lowena—who very recently gave birth to twins—added, “We also looked at, like, rhythmic gymnastics. A lot of different Olympics, where they did all different kinds of gymnastics. The Bulgarian Olympic team and the British Olympic team, through the ages, a lot the ’80s and ’90s were most inspiring—all the prints and all the sequins. There was a lot of information to look at.”Originally—back in the day when Chopova and Lowena collaborated on their Central Saint Martins MA graduate collection—it was the unlikely combustion of Lowena’s enthusiasm for outdoor sports and Chopova’s love of Bulgarian folk costume that fused into the long-lasting genius of their knife-pleated, rock-climbing, carabiner-suspended skirts. That incredibly distinctive garment is as popular a brand signifier to an indie generation of all genders, sexualities, shapes, and sizes as a Chanel jacket is to mainstream fashion. Its endless iterations in different collaged colors, tartans, and patterns are worn as a sign of belonging that’s largely responsible for spreading happiness among Chopova Lowena’s audience as they crowd into their seats.But, of course, their original recipe—something folksy with something sporty—has gone far beyond that now. It’s fully head to toe, layered up in tiers and smock-y Victoriana blouses over petticoat skirts over pants over jumbles of elaborate socks and studded boots. Then there’s their talent for unmissable jewelry and hardware—and often an anarchic combination of both. This time that included cutlery in the hair, horse braces, and necklaces festooned with toy horses.
And even more double-take-y than that: the Chopova Lowena collaboration with Asics trainers, surreally tricked out with metal butterflies so huge that they almost looked like mythical beasts. “They’re actually garden-center ornaments,” Chopova noted.Among the fast paced, pell-mell energy of this show, there was a lot more going on, including a “mommy” bag with a spoon, Band-Aids, a rattle, a toy car, and an emergency jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise strapped to the outside. Yet more was—literally—in the air: the scent of roses, or was that geraniums? Both, actually. Chopova’s father, she related, has “found this really cool factory in the Bulgarian Rose Valley. We’ve made perfumes with Bulgarian flowers and herbs in them, all based in rose oil.”The designers revealed that they’d pitched this idea for developing fragrances and candles to the BFC/VogueDesigner Fashion Fund as their business-extension plan should they win. And, of course, they did.
13 September 2024
Part of the joy of leafing through a new Chopova Lowena collection is discovering what unlikely pair of ideas designers Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons have decided to mash together through their process of bewitching sartorial alchemy. (Skateboarding and folk festivals! Lacrosse and death metal! Turkish school uniforms and women’s jockey gear!) Yet while their eclectic interests have seen them rove the far corners of the globe—often returning to Eastern Europe, as a nod to Chopova’s heritage—this season, they found their initial spark of inspiration a little closer to home.Merely by looking out of the windows of their Deptford studio, it turns out. “We moved to a new space by the river that overlooks a sailing club, and we just fell in love with all the sailing hardware and the gear,” Chopova explained. To counterbalance those nautical references—which spanned everything from zinc alloy trinkets inspired by the metalwork motifs found on historic ships, to a slinky Lycra bodysuit that burst forth at the waistline into a ruffled bubble skirt—they looked to the flurry of weddings that took place in Britain after the outbreak of World War II, hastily arranged before soldiers headed off to war. (As the pair observed in their show notes, “to venture out to sea is also to leave something behind.”)Those nods to 1940s bridal gowns came in a series of delightful midi dresses with drop waists ruched around hand-crochet panels inspired by mariners’ nets, undercut with some Chopova Lowena edge courtesy of colorful camouflage prints, metal headbands placed over bump-its and barrel curls, and an especially fabulous new shoe design—the Stefanie boot—that features brogue-like buckles over the foot and up to the knee. “We made every brooch and every button and every little buckle,” Lowena added, with visible pride.After all, another of the great joys of leafing through a new Chopova Lowena collection is the craftsmanship and attention to detail—and once again, this technical wizardry was impressive to behold. Most striking, perhaps, were the pair’s experiments with broderie anglaise, here in a moody black-and-red colorway decorated with what they described as “alien flowers” that were initially inspired by the lace detailing on 1940s bridal dresses, before being whizzed up in the wonky Chopova Lowena blender to create something eerie and spectral.
“I think we’re getting more confident in how we use fabrics, and it’s always fun to create a piece in the kind of fabric you’d least expect,” said Chopova, pointing also to their use of faux fur for panels on trousers, and a lovely cotton blouse with a sailor’s collar in shiny white nylon that could be tweaked and adjusted with the help of pull ties.
16 February 2024
To a concrete skatepark under the Westway for Chopova Lowena’s sophomore show, on a balmy Friday night one year on from a runway debut that many dubbed the highlight of London’s spring 2023 schedule. The duo behind the brand, Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena-Irons, could have been forgiven for feeling the nerves—expectations were running high after that joyful first outing. But these two are nothing if not prepared. Plus, as Chopova pointed out in a preview two days before the show: “It feels like maybe this collection is better than that one was, because we’ve grown or something.”The designers took the eminently sensible decision at the outset to show on the runway once a year, in order to avoid the scenario that befell another of London’s bright young things, Dilara Findikoglu, earlier this week. Forced to cancel her presentation just days before it was scheduled to be staged, due to lack of funds, Findikoglu’s decision followed that of other buzzy talents Nensi Dojaka and S.S. Daley, both of whom opted out of showing this season. The British Fashion Council’s Caroline Rush cut to the chase: “I don’t think it has ever been more difficult to be an independent designer in London than it is at this moment.”So: way to go, Chopova Lowena, a young brand stomping its way through a period of economic gloom, in a country severely hamstrung by the after-effects of Brexit and the pandemic, with good humor, common sense, and clever ideas. As the amount of CL-clad fans in the audience attested, this is a label that connects with its diverse, discerning audience. They found much to whoop about here, with a collection that blended Chopova Lowena’s weakness for folkloric whimsy with a streetwise swagger. Extra spice came courtesy of the casting, which took in friends, colleagues, acquaintances, plus mothers and brothers and boyfriends, resulting in a compelling line-up of characters you simply couldn’t take your eyes off.The designers had chosen the skatepark as an homage to the “skater boy you love” (that’s Bulgaria-born, New Jersey-raised Chopova) “or the boy you want to be” (Somerset-raised tomboy Lowena-Irons). Tony Hawk made his presence felt in plaid pajama pants, graphic zip-up hoodies, board shorts and studded Ugg boots, part of a collaboration with the brand. The rest referenced the ancient Flora Day festival, held every May in the village of Helston in Cornwall, on England’s wild south-west coast.
Comprising numerous processions and dances, including mermaids and maidens, angels and devils (this reporter was sat in the ‘Devil Girl Block,’ which makes a change from ‘Block C’), it manifested in hand-embroidered broderie anglaise dresses, thick leather belts and a pair of knickers adorned with hundreds of beads and charms, and a particularly fabulous jacket made of white crispy ribbons like those you’d see on draped across a wedding car.Chopova and Lowena-Irons also took the opportunity to launch shoes and bags, produced in Portugal and Italy respectively, while the rest of their production continues apace in Bulgaria. The best was bowling bag shaped, with designated pockets for a comb, a notebook, a credit card, a house key, and a nail file, “so you can write down your thoughts, then brush your hair with a seahorse-shaped brush,” giggled Lowena-Irons. “We liked the survivalist girl handbag situation!”Survivalism is an apt sentiment to tap into, faced with an industry increasingly dominated by megabrands with seemingly less and less space for independents. What do they struggle with most as young designers? “You have to do so many jobs—no one prepares you for that,” said Chopova. “The pit of things you have to face, it’s just never-ending.” Still, they’re fired up for the future. “This is further down the line, but we want to do homeware, childrenswear, dogwear…” Chopova continued, while Lowena-Irons added: “And be able to live life!”
15 September 2023
London’s still buzzing from the memory of Chopova Lowena’s debut runway show last September. A great part of it was the explosively enjoyable atmosphere generated by the gathering of the Chopova Lowena clans, who all turned out proudly dressed in their carabiner kilts. “It was the first time we’d seen everyone together, all at the same time—different groups, different ages,” remembered Laura Lowena. Emma Chopova wracked her brains to account for the febrile enthusiasm that day. “This question always stumps me,” she exclaimed. “But I think it’s because every part of what we do is to make sure that everyone can see themselves in Chopova Lowena.”Truth to tell, the surprise of that occasion was that its joyful sense of community could have been generated up to then by Chopova Lowena’s Instagram and lookbooks. This season the designers are back again to the familiar lookbook format—they’ve set themselves a policy of showing once a year for sensible financial reasons. And for fall, their quirky, hilarious, crafty-cool inclusivity jumps—or perhaps slaloms—into view with a ski theme.A ’70s ski-theme that somehow got caught up with Georgian petticoats, bloomers, cross-lacing, and bonnets, to be exact. Trust them to turn such a bonkers combo into an extensive collection of clothes and accessories that are at the service of cold-weather practicality as well as fun. They’ve played with the idea of retro children’s patterned ski suits and sleepwear to come up with high-waisted checkered pajama-cum-snowboarding trousers, baby-bedsheet prints, and the piped-pocket detailing that made the whole recognizably Chopova Lowena. Genius cardigans—some with vintage baby-book doll characters dancing on the front, others threaded through with tartan ribbon tied in bows—evoke some sort of deranged Tyrolean classic.There are layers and layers to explore here, from heavy-duty brown leather ‘carabiner jackets,’ through ski-capris with frilly knees, stripy wool scarves, tights, and knotted-top beanies, all the way through to stuff that sorts out how a Chopova Lowena person parties—which is to say in lacy white and bows, but with a definite Goth-y attitude.Any fans who might be feeling a bit deflated to have to wait until next season for Chopova Lowena to show again will be happy to know that they’re planning a different IRL experience in May. “We’ve made a zine that brings this collection to life as a fairy tale struggle between good and evil.
” The Chopova Lowena version ofThe Snow Queenwill be manifesting in New York at Frieze in May. Why New York? “Well, we’ve found our sales have been particularly good there!” Somehow, you can hear the kilted ones marking their calendars at the news, right now.
17 February 2023
Everyone’s already bought into the fact that Chopova Lowena are great—you only had to clock the number of people who swaggered into their first runway show at London’s Porchester Hall swirling their signature multi-pleated carabiner-suspended kilts to know that’s real. But wow! The driving energy the designers unleashed on the runway, personified to the max by their gang of friends, family, collaborators, and street-cast models stomping through a loud cacophony of Bulgarian folk song, Lacrosse-match cheering, and metal music—it was a grade A moment better than even their super-fans could’ve hoped.“We had three months to fit everyone, so they all felt perfect. Right space, right sound, a great experience emotionally, a different way of walking,” Emma Chopova declared afterward. “A different take on the classic show, right?” Standing next to her, Laura Lowena chimed in: “Yeah, we wanted to make sure the time was right, that we could really create the Chopova Lowena world for everyone to see. And I think that waiting was the right thing to do. Especially after such a quiet few years, it felt amazing to bring people—our community—together like this.”The impressive part was to see everything Chopova Lowena have been building up through their lookbooks and videos come to life, confirmed as a fully formed multiplicity of looks, prints, denim, tailoring, skirts over dresses, metal jewelry, tinsel knits, with mad-cozy boots, hand-drawn cartoony artwork, cotton armlets, and all. It’s all completely coherently styled and identifiable, yet simultaneously it looked as if each person was having a good time walking around in their own clothes. Men owned kilts and uniform skirts with conviction for the first time since Jean Paul Gaultier in the 1980s. Although, Lowena firmly pointed out, “we don’t really think in terms of men and women. We think of people.”The part of Emma Chopova’s background that’s well known is that she’s Bulgarian, and brought up in America; hence the brand’s effective supply chain. This collection paid homage to the Rose Festival, a pageant which takes place in Kazanlak, the village in central Bulgaria where Chopova’s ancestry is rooted. There were riffs on rose-forms in prints and cuts; a backpack became a whorl of petals.Sport—the other source of Chopova Lowena’s brand identity—showed up in homage to Lacrosse, which Chopova played at school in Bridgewater High School in Somerset, New Jersey.
“It was a very big deal in high school, what the cool girls did—which was very much like what I wasn’t,” she laughed. The Lacrosse references turned up in mad tinsel versions of college team vests with CL logos and the big tinsel-furry boots. Somehow, fierce sounds of cheering and shouting on the soundtrack added grit to the collective atmosphere of the whole joyous thing.Lowena—the sporty one, starting from her school in Somerset, England—put her finger on that. “The thing about playing sport at school was that people were always sort of accepting—you were doing an activity in which you had to be a team. It pulls people together who are like, really different or already the same,” she grinned. “And so, different people come together.” Then both designers nodded in unison. That was the Chopova Lowena team spirit that came over so strongly in the attitude of the band of supporters who’d stomped around their runway. “And they killed it!” laughed Chopova. “They did!”
17 September 2022
Chopova Lowena could easily rest on its laurels. The brand’s carabiner skirts are a runaway success, worn the world over by Fashion Week guests, pop stars, and Real Housewives. No less than sixVogueeditors wear the brand’s monogram chain necklaces, and their growing blouse and bag categories have set the business up well for the future. But Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena aren’t the type to take it easy. In their Deptford studio, brimming with taffetas and fleeces, Chopova says, “Every season we’re trying to do new things, things that don’t feel like us. It’s interesting to see how we can make new categories our own.”For fall 2022 they have tackled suiting. “Skirt suits felt the most Chopova Lowena, obviously,” says Lowena. Theirs are made with a rounded double breasted jacket and pleated miniskirt, in deadstock orange plaid or deadstock silky synthetic. Necklaces and bracelets are laced into the collars and cuffs so that the pieces jingle and sparkle.The integration of metal chains into their clothing comes from their research into medieval dress. Each season, the designers clash a folk reference with a sport one—this time they’ve landed on ice hockey versus Renaissance Faire, extrapolating tying and knitting details and armor-like finishes and titling the collection “kiss the hare’s foot,” a medieval expression used, per Chopova, “for when you miss dinner but savor the leftover scraps.” (A reference to their deadstock practice.)The romantic-meets-brutal spirit of their collection works well, the CL boys and girls existing in an in-between. They are not pretty in their laced-together flocked dress with a white slip. They are not strange in a taffeta “octopus” skirt made of 8 plaid panels, each knotted at the hem, worn with a fuzzy floral cardigan, the brand’s first earnest foray into knitwear. They are not silly either, even if rabbit-ear hoods and cartoon-print tops telegraph childlike humor. Standing boldly in their velvet tops and hardcore metal-trimmed trousers, they are something else, a new aesthetic, a new spirit of furious eclecticism that could only be Chopova Lowena.That’s the genius of their work: it simply cannot be mistaken for anything else. Even the label’s most basic piece, say, a legging, is in a haywire color combo and covered in flowers.
Perhaps it’s each piece’s singularity that makes CL’s group of fans and customers feel like a community, a funky flower patch a signal to others in the know that you, too, are not going to take it easy, but instead, every day, will try to be magically new.
21 February 2022
“Humor and glamour” are the two spirits of Chopova Lowena’s spring 2022 collection, per the designers. What a welcome idea in a season of re-emergence dressing that has hewed, surprisingly, to either the serious or the sexual. Watching the spring 2022 season unfold in New York and London so far, I’m wondering where the real new ideas are amidst the classic, breezy separates and slinky strappy little things. Must every collection have a sexy top or a lady dress? Is there no other way?In their South London studio, Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena cut their own path with a wink and a bit of saucy flair. Their maniacally structured dresses are almost peerless in the market, and to wear them you have to be ready to attract attention of every kind. Chopova and Lowena are assuming their position as the patron saints of strangeness with a collection that fuses surfer girl staples with fashion signatures from Lowena’s Germanic heritage. Trachten bustiers inspire fitted bodices with cut-out neckline details that carry into the brand’s debut swimwear. Graphics are hand-drawn by Chopova and Lowena, sketchy smiling suns and happy fish blown up large on one-pieces, tees, and leggings.
22 September 2021
During the many weeks they’ve been designing and sewing during lockdown in their London studio, Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena got to comparing notes on their completely different school days. Their Class of 21 collection is a mishmash of memories, photographed on an inclusive cast of characterful “students” that includes a new intake of boys. Because, they’ve discovered boys have become Chopova Lowena fans, too.Lowena was educated at a school in England where uniforms were compulsory. “At school we had a skirt, a blazer, and a shirt and tie—and you could see how the different cliques tried to get away with imposing their identities on it, without being sent to the head teacher.” For Chopova, who attended what she calls a typical American school with no regulation uniform, there was the whole other trouble: navigating teen-imposed dress codes. “I was preppy, I was Goth, I was Emo, I tried everything. The way you dressed completely defined you, and if you didn’t fit in, you had the worst time and people made fun of you. I did so many things to rebel against it,” she sighs. “It was horrible to live, but I realize that’s part of why I love clothes. Because I got to rebel against the norm.”How did those indelible teen-girl traumas shape their new collection? The designers looked at each other on the Zoom call. “Well, I feel like freedom and joy has gone into the restrictiveness of all that,” said Chopova. They set to work on disrupting signs and signals of uniform: about pinafores, kilt-dresses, shirts, ties. The research they compiled included finding photographs of school girls in Anatolia in Turkey, whose dresses are trimmed with white scalloped collars and mini-embroideries. They also looked at another girl-society—the silk tops that female jockeys wear, which set them off on designing recycled fleeces.In the end, it’s a continuation of the Chopova Lowena world, whose quirky appeal draws more customers every season. They’re widening their embrace even more, with the imminent launch of their own e-commerce site in April. With it comes the good news of their intention to extend their sizes; something they’ve figured out they can do because of their production in Bulgaria. “We’re in a good position, because of our factories in Bulgaria it costs a lot less to grade. A lot of other people are stopped by that because it costs hundreds of pounds to grade up a pattern.” Even in times of limitation, this resourceful pair always finds the positives.
In isolation, they ended up making most of the samples in the look book themselves. “But we liked making them,” Chopova reflects. “Making them ourselves was way more immediate, and joyful. It was satisfying.”
24 February 2021
Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena took a gathering of their collaborators and interns outside their studio in the postindustrial docks area of Deptford, London, to shoot their spring look book. “We did it ourselves on our iPhones,” they said, on a Zoom call as they shared the pictures. “Everyone we collaborated with is in the look book, except for a Bulgarian woman, who we found on Facebook, who made loom-beaded pieces for us.”So here are their friends, standing on concrete and cobblestones under an overpass, with a washed-up wooden riverboat in one direction, a red commuter train shooting overhead, and the vivid green shoots of untended nature springing up beneath their feet. As a glimpse of a little-seen corner of the Thames shore, the backdrop is a perfect metaphor for the designers’ youthful energy—their uplifting knack of finding beauty and romance in overlooked places, and their ingeniously pragmatic ways of re-crafting fragments of the past into ideas that young women find irresistibly wearable.Some of the girl gang pictured are Faye, a painter who contributed designs for their burgeoning line of printed jeans; Jewel, a makeup artist; Ami, who made prints based on cut-up Bulgarian postcards of dogs, roses, and Easter eggs for T-shirts; and jewelry designer Georgia, who made charms.Because Chopova and Lowena have never had a show or a presentation since they started their brand two years ago, some might be surprised to realize that they’re London-based at all. Instead, they’ve focused on building up signatures, like their accordion-pleated kilts suspended on steel climbing hooks clipped to leather belts, and developing their penchant for dresses in checks and tartans—with tons of satisfying swish in the skirts—made from deadstock fabrics. All of this continues with even more exuberance and multiple-check action here.Explaining the narratives of how they source and make in Bulgaria, which is Chopova’s family home, is also important to the designers. There are lots more vintage materials from her home country in this collection. “My mum helped me clean and recondition antique wall hangings. People traditionally used to hang them in their kitchens over stoves or above their sofas or beds,” Chopova relates. Bulgarian people are willing to part with them, she says, because they don’t use them anymore. “The fabrics have a lot of baggage. They remind them of communism and folklore, which don’t have favorable connotations.”
17 September 2020
Emma Chopova and Laura Lowena are forging an exciting phenomenon which embodies the energy of young fashion in an equally inspired system change. “It’s important for us not to make clothes for the sake of it, but to make things which are part of our heritage, and are helping people,” they say.You might have seen their unmistakable skirts—multiple-pleated patchworks, suspended by mountaineering carabiners from chunky leather belts—swishing through crowds. If you have, you’ll remember them. Their founding signature, made out of traditional fabrics from Bulgaria—and produced there—was an instant sellout in London and New York when MatchesFashion.com picked it up three seasons ago, when the designers were fresh out of the MA program at Central Saint Martins.Chopova is the one with the Bulgarian background, Lowena her climbing-mad English partner. In a short space of time they’ve developed a burgeoning cult following for their upcycled collection: colorfully cool, full-skirted dresses with big puffed sleeves, layerings of tartans, and ’70s prints.Chopova’s light bulb moment was realizing that her home country is full of under-recognized cultural resources—both in terms of rich fabrics and skilled female sewers. “After communism in Bulgaria, it was all about adopting a Western lifestyle,” she says. “So all the beautiful traditional clothes which had been made as dowries for brides, which people kept in trunks for generations—they didn’t find them precious anymore, and were throwing them out.”The designers began retrieving them, along with cheap-to-find ’70s mass-produced flower-print and check taffeta deadstock, then made a network of Bulgarian women seamstresses to make their collections. “It’s built up by one friend knowing another—someone knew a granny who loves embroidery, the old technique they used for aprons. So now it’s great that everything’s being made by these women who really know their skill.”Thanks to another friendship-group link, Chopova Lowena has hit on a head-turningly original way of making jeans, printed with beautifully faded marbled patterns, inset with florals. “It’s made by women in their houses in Bursa in Turkey,“ says Chopova. “We discovered it through one of the Bulgarian women we work with, who goes there.” Every piece is unique. “It’s a-300-year-old technique which is used for making Turkish tiles; but now we’ve transferred it to fabric,” she continues. “Every piece is unique, and we’ve made shorts too.”
3 March 2020