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This Hungarian Roma designer is fighting age-old stereotypes with fashion

Hungarian Roma fashion designer Erika Varga says her label is about stitching together cultural traditions and snipping through stereotypes as much as it’s about dressmaking. ““Fashion is a branch of art that interests and connects people, non-Roma and Roma,” the founder of Romani Design said. Often blamed for petty crimes, the Roma, Hungary’s largest ethnic minority, face widespread discrimination, poverty, and exclusion from mainstream society. “In most cases, Roma appears in a pejorative way in the media. Many turn away from their own culture… But people need positive role models, not just the majority in society but also Roma people themselves,” the 47-year-old designer said.

Founded in 2010 by Varga to promote Roma fashion and identity, her Romani Design studio brought out its first collection the same year. Now, her evening dresses can sell for up to 1,000 euros ($1,100). Varga’s latest range, called Rebel Spirit, is inspired by strong female figures, including her mother, late grandmother, and 20th-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, a hero of hers. The small, long-haired designer said she asked “nonconforming women who have overcome challenges in their lives” to model the range.

“It’s important to express openness in what you wear,” said one of the models, Adel Onodi, 23, who became the first transgender woman to appear on the front cover of a Hungarian fashion magazine last year. After leaving school in eastern Hungary, Varga soon set up her own jewelry-making business before fashion design. Now, she employs five staff, including her folk-singer sister, who designs and makes the frocks at Varga’s home studio on the outskirts of Budapest, where she lives with her husband and two dogs.

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Varga says that she is not put off running a business by conventional attitudes in the Roma community on women’s role in society. Traditional Roma motifs like flowers are a typical feature of her designs, particularly one of her favorites, the rose — a symbol of femininity — which adorns even the slippers she wears while pedaling her sewing machine. Most of her skirts and dresses are long, in line with Roma tradition. Roma makes up around an estimated seven percent of Hungary’s 10 million-strong population, but Varga says they are “thinly represented within the industry among models, hairstylists or photographers.”

Her studio organizes mentoring programs aimed at helping more Roma youngsters get into the fashion business. She says that many in the local rag trade dismiss the firm as a “gypsy brand,” even though, for centuries, Hungarian and Roma clothing traditions and motifs have overlapped. Most of its buyers are “socially-conscious,” middle-class, non-Roma, who buy online, she says, or foreigners at the three or four trade fairs abroad attended by the studio every year. A recent event in Qatar was particularly fruitful as Arab women snapped up the colorful garments for indoor wear, Varga says. The small business also relies on funding for its educational projects from public and private donors and other sources.

Wendell Washington

I started blogging back in 2019 with a few of my friends and quickly fell in love with it. Over the years, my blog has evolved to include fashion and beauty posts, with a little bit of food, lifestyle, and travel thrown in there too. I now blog full time and live in the middle of nowhere. I love trying new things and have many plans for my future. The more I learn about this industry, the more I realize how much I love it! I want to be able to inspire others to love what they do, whether it’s working in the world of fashion, beauty, or food.

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