I had already started thinking about this collection before, in March 2019, while traveling with my boyfriend for a month in Iran. It didn't take long for me to see the obvious link between the physical shape of the heart-organ, and its intricate "lines of access to the rest of the body" with the national fruit of that country - the pomegranate. The deep connections that we ended up creating with many of the people we met during that great month were the fuel that drove my inspiration.

The collection presented here is, therefore, inspired by this interesting and poetic dualism of the physical-pomegranate heart and the metaphorical heart – Soul of Iran. The fact that we deliver symbolic energy, as a culture, into the muscle that gives us the possibility to live and fills us with life; was the motto for a collection that also symbolizes the bridge between people. The act of traveling appears as an essential movement to stretch our hearts into others; like a metaphorical yet essential bridge that makes us meet each other and live more fully.

Just as the pomegranate has, in its crown, the umbilical cord that connects it to the tree that generated it; so the heart would be useless without the arteries and veins that connect it to the body, giving it life.

The fact that we need connections for the heart not to shrivel and wither away leads us into the realization that traveling is one of the best ways to prevent this situation.

We have much to gain from the contact with people who are often hidden, cast aside and despised by the modern world; who live in ways that are out of time and out of reach. Traveling is also reconnecting to these hidden parts of our own essence. And it is that essence that I wish to capture for this collection.

Azara - the heart of Iran is large and scarlet