MATIN MITHRAS

Matin Mithras always wanted to be a designer, but when he was growing up in Tehran, the only college that taught fashion only accepted women. Mithras settled on studying interior design instead and forged the beginnings of a successful career. But when he moved with his family to Canada in 2010 (“We didn’t like the [Iranian] government,” he says), he realized he was ready for a new path. “From the first day we moved to Canada, I had this feeling that I was going to try fashion,” he says. When he was chosen to be an SRFI fellow, the fourth-year Ryerson student who specializes in vampy glamour describes feeling validated for his life choices. “I feel like I put my heart and passion into something that I really love doing, and it looks like somebody’s recognized it,” he says. Turns out his childhood dreams weren’t so far out of reach after all.