Alexandra Zofcin grew up in Boca Raton, Florida where fashion was always a huge interest of hers. Zofcin studied fashion in high school, and for college, she stayed local and studied fashion and retail. “But design was always in my heart and so was travel, so I studied abroad at FUA in Florence, Italy for apparel design,” Zofcin explained. In the very beginning, Zofcin’s biggest inspirations were always my grandmother, Valentino, Alexander McQueen, and the ideals of the Punk movement. Nowadays, Zofcin finds inspiration from people she encounters in her travels. Each collection represents “societal conflicts and their potential solutions”. So, the environment and the people in it, become the sole inspiration.
Zofcin’s grandmother inspired her to dive into the fashion industry and is the drive behind everything she does. “She was a savvy shopper and had a keen eye for fashion. She bought me my first Vogue subscription and used to sit with me while we flipped through all the glossy pages of high-end design. I knew by the fourth grade that I wanted my own fashion house.” The brand launched officially in May 2016, and the origin of the name is Zofcin’s initials.
Enjoying the process from beginning to end, Zofcin makes all of the patterns herself, each piece is made to order, and she has one other seamstress at the moment to help finish each garment as they are hand sewn and custom. Sustainability is one of the brand’s core values. “That is why we make all of our clothing to order, or in very small quantities at a time in order to eliminate excess waste at the end of a selling season.” Traditional tailoring techniques are also essential to Zofcin. “We try to use innovative ways to create and layout patterns to ensure the least amount of scrap fabric at the end of the garment’s production. For example, most designers cut the selvedge edge of the fabric off, but we view it as a design element as try to keep it visible from the inside or sometimes even, the outside as often as possible. Our process is far from perfect, but striving toward sustainable innovation is always a goal.”
Already stocked in a concept boutique called FLY (Fashion Loves You) in Florence, Italy, you can also find her bespoke pieces online at www.thehouseofamz.com. Zofcin is looking for more concept boutiques globally to stock The House of AmZ. Social media for Zofcin is a platform to express the mood behind each collection and allows her buyers to further connect with the piece before it is completed. “This connection between garment and wearer is very important to me.”
Her goal is to further create a fusion between traditional art and the fashion world. “Art has been used as a means of communicating social issues for centuries, and through those methods, I would like to fuse fashion techniques to create a walking, wearable social statement,” she added. “Vancouver Fashion Week is giving us an even broader global platform to display our product and messaging, and for that, we are grateful,” said Zofcin. “Vancouver has become such a hotspot for emerging design talent that I knew it was where I needed to go next.” The collection showing at Vancouver Fashion Week defies the concept of season and explores the conclusion to Zofcin’s ‘Femininity Is…’ series. “In this way, it will be a sort of summary chapter and a more “year-in-the-life-of-” collection, rather than a specifically Fall/Winter collection.”
