‘Passion for fashion’ earns designer big break
One of Wellington’s rising fashion stars has weaved his way into the country’s top fashion event.
Designer Youhan Khosho, 20, is in his third year at the New Zealand Institute of Fashion Technology (NZFT) and is one of 16 whose silk designs will feature on the Resene Designer Runway at New Zealand Fashion Week.
The show is the culmination of the 2017 Resene NZ Fashion Tech Colour of Fashion project, which allows students to jumpstart their career in New Zealand’s biggest fashion event.
Khosho is one of 15 NZFT students currently in India on a Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia, where he and his classmates will recreate their garments from a locally-sourced silk sari for a fashion show hosted by the Bannari Amman Institute of Technology in Sathyamangalam.
His garment, based on Resene colour Fugitive, was inspired by terracotta brick, historical structured architecture and rusty colours and textures.
Khosho says this led him to create his two-piece outfit with strong lines, shadows and an interesting silhouette.
In India, the students have been seeing fabric manufactured from the fibre, both small-scale and in large units with more than 2500 sewers.
Originally made in one block colour, Khosho says his recreation of the garment in India will be made in cream and pink, with three different patterned saris.
Born in Syria, Khosho’s family moved to New Zealand when he was 7-months-old. He has been interested in fashion for as long as he can remember.
His mother would buy him cheap fabrics, which he would hand sew together as a child. The two always watched Project Runway together.
‘‘She’s been a huge influence,’’ Khosho says. ‘‘She’s the one who taught me how to knit, sew, all the basic grounds of fashion.’’
Finding out his garment will walk the runway at Fashion Week was a ‘‘dream come true,’’ he says.
‘‘I had a huge smile on my face. I think it’s going to be amazing. I’m just feeling really privileged to be on the Fashion Week runway because I never would have expected it.’’
He sees the opportunity as the starting point of his career, helping to get his name out there and providing lots of inspiration to help him find his personal aesthetic.
Khosho says he really does have a ‘‘passion of fashion’’.
‘‘I’m going to put my heart into everything that comes in future. If I fail I’ll just keep trying and trying until something happens.’’ New Zealand Fashion Week runs from August 28 to September 3.