Beauty Beyond Seasons
Welcome to the world of ArdAzAei, where Persian heritage, Swedish Modernism and French savoir-faire collide to form a responsible, and non-seasonal luxury womenswear brand. ArdAzAei is an investigation of beauty beyond seasons engaged in the search for the sublime.
A Note on ArdAzAei's Founder
Born in Tehran, Iran, in 1984, Bahareh Ardakani emigrated to Sweden in 1985. After studying Design Engineering in 2016, Ardakani came across Lapis Lazuli a deep-blue metamorphic, semiprecious stone which compelled her to study gemology in Antwerp. The new way of seeing she gained by studying the molecular composition of gemstones inspired Ardakani to translate these understandings of long-lasting inner beauty into a fashion brand one that is engaged in transmuting the sense of the sublime that Ardakani felt when she first cast her eyes within the inner geometry of Lapis Lazuli.
Design Philosophy
Gemology, the science of the inner properties of a gemstone, exposes the beauty that is reflected in its outer gloss. With optics, an entire inner world is opened, the hidden dimensions of beauty. As such, an ArdAzAei garment has two sides: its inner world, and its outer appearance—it is through the attention paid to a garment’s inner world that its outer radiance is revealed.
When these optics are transferred to fashion, two ideas of beauty from which the aesthetics of ArdAzAei emerge: The Secret is that a gem’s beauty is the reflection of its inner world. Applied to fashion, this concerns the whole ecosystem of creation from the natural conditions of a garment’s raw materials to its craftsmanship, the imagination of the design, the endeavour of work, and the social dimensions of creativity. In short: the care. The Seeing into the gem confronts us with the incomprehensible eternal time that is gathered in its interior. This is the encounter with the sublime that transcends the faculties of understanding. The interior of a gem speaks of nature’s infinity, which leads the observer to gain insight into their own infinite nature.
These two ideas are connected. In contrast to trends in cycles of consumption, ArdAzAei grounds the beauty of its garments in the care paid to a creation in order for it to then place its wearer in the dimension of the ever-present—the infinite. The brand name ArdAzAei is an expression of this belief. A portmanteau of Bahareh’s parents’ surnames, ArdAzAei is the DNA that transcends the origins of the brand’s products so that they can live on in new interpreters.
The Aesthetics of Care
ArdAzAei creations are its ambassadors of a distinctly refined art de vivre, manifested in three pillars.
◊ Made in France: ArdAzAei never compromises on quality, and as such the brand’s creations are Made in France, for the country’s sophistication and elegance, excellent craftsmanship, art and culture, and the rare French artisanal expertise linked to its living heritage companies. From products to customer service, ArdAzAei cultivates its point of difference through a constant quest for excellence.
◊◊ Scandinavian Touch: Founded in Sweden, ArdAzAei draws great influence in the importance of the brand’s home country places on notions of honesty, trust and functionality. Themes such as enlightened gender dynamics, radical transparency, and sustainability first will reshape the fashion industry’s value chain. As such, ArdAzAei has adopted the ‘fewer, better things’ mantra, and is promoting cautious consumption.
◊◊◊ Persian Heritage: Iran, home to one of the oldest civilisations in the world is the origin of ArdAzAei’s creative director, Bahareh Ardakani. Her Persian heritage permeates the brand with the play of colours, geometric and floral shapes, use of silk, and the detailed embroidery of its designs—as indeed does the country’s poetic culture and mathematics based on the mysteries of nature.
Radical Transparency
ArdAzAei focuses on working with textile suppliers that can reveal the details of the origins and processes behind their products, tracing each fabric right through the supply chain of raw materials, yarn spinners, weavers, print and dyeing techniques.
Transparency also relates to how the company operates. As such, ArdAzAei received the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certificate in 2022 (Organic – certified by Ecocert Greenlife 257263). GOTS is the leading textile processing standard for organic fibers, assessing a number of environmental and social-ethical criteria of the entire textile supply chain, covering not just the fabric used, but the entire end-product. More specifically, the fibre of the fabric has been grown organically, and the final product is guaranteed to be free from a long list of restricted, hazardous chemicals.
ArdAzAei and its suppliers are following all the relevant OECD standards of workers’ rights. ArdAzAei's goal is to continuously increase the GOTS product range.
