For These Designers, Tradition is the Future
Courtesy of Sera.
For These Designers, Tradition is the Future
Simay Demirel spoke with a new generation of designers challenging fashion's obsession with speed by embracing craft.
By Simay Demirel
In today’s fashion landscape, a new generation of designers is challenging the relentless churn of trends, speed, and scalability with something far more radical: craft. Far from nostalgia, this movement—led by designers like Sera Studio, Rescha, and Yoshita 1967—signals a refusal to be flattened by mass culture. Instead, these designers are digging deeply into their cultural heritage, blending artisanal heritage with contemporary narratives. But what drives this longing for the authentic, and what does this return to craft say about culture today?
Sera, photographed by Maxime Bony. Courtesy of Sera.
Sera, photographed by Chaumont Zaerpour. Courtesy of Sera.
The “craft” label has always been synonymous with cultural heritage, and it’s been something many brands—past and present—have aspired to. But for decades, it was a term most designers steered clear of, due to its association with imperfection. Today, it’s proudly claimed amongst the young generation of designers who are fully embedding craft into their brand DNA. In a world where the “hand made" has become synonymous with rare and expensive—due to the machine-made reality we live in—craft has become widely celebrated and embraced by luxury fashion brands, designers and artists alike. Using it as a term to showcase their dedication to quality, the transfer of knowledge and their investment into artisans. While large luxury brands love to talk about craftsmanship, their approach remains impersonal and only accessible to the few. A new generation of Paris-based designers is taking a different approach, using craft as a vehicle for storytelling.
“ In a world where the “hand made" has become SYNONYMOUS with rare and expensive—due to the machine-made reality we live in—craft has become widely celebrated and embraced by luxury fashion brands, designers and artists alike.”
For Turkish designer Sera Oltan, founder of Sera Studio, returning to craft is a rebellion against what she sees as a culture of disposability. Her brand is defined by intricate oya embroidery, a centuries-old Turkish needlework that once served as a means of communication among women across Anatolia, a region in Turkey. Oltan’s use of oya isn’t simply decorative; it's a deeply rooted tradition, one that tells the stories and emotions of the women who make it. “When we return to the authentic,” Oltan explains, “we return to the source, to the essential.”
By reviving these techniques, Sera isn’t just making clothes; she’s resurrecting a cultural artifact, one that challenges the fashion system to value meaning over immediacy. In an industry increasingly obsessed with speed, Sera’s choice to work slowly, purposefully, and collaboratively with Turkish artisans is a pointed critique. While the production process isn’t focused on efficiency or output, it resonates with an unmistakable humanity that fast fashion simply cannot replicate.
Rescha, photographed by Solene Gun.
Rescha, photographed by Solene Gun.
This tension between fast and slow, superficial and meaningful, is echoed by Charlotte Chowdhury of fashion brand Rescha. A Franco-Indian designer, Chowdhury builds her brand around a cultural duality that defies the easy tropes of social media. “Our generation felt the need to express and celebrate their authenticity,” she says, emphasizing the urge to push back against the increasingly monotonous nature of modern consumption. Chowdhury’s pieces don’t rely on trend forecasting; instead, they’re grounded in her process of handpicking sustainable fibers and deadstock yarn, and spending months alongside Indian artisans to develop her fabrics.
For Chowdhury, fashion is about “inhabiting what we grew up with”—a means of making space for identity within a globalized industry. Her knit pieces, often embedded with beads meticulously placed one by one, are as much a statement as they are a style. There’s a defiance to her work—a commitment to the slow and the personal over the instant gratification and endless scroll of fashion’s algorithmic trends. Her work reflects a simple truth: true artistry can’t be hacked, and culture can’t be compressed into a starter-pack aesthetic.
For Anil Padia of Yoshita 1967, craft is both a medium and a message. Padia’s family’s journey from Gujarat to Nairobi comes alive in his crochet work, which elevates a modest, everyday craft into something modern. Each piece is handmade by Kenyan artisans—21 women and several missionary nuns, each contributing to a collective story that defies the single-origin myth of global fashion. “In a world where digital culture often flattens and simplifies identity,” Padia observes, “the need to return to authentic roots feels essential,” says Padia, capturing the unease many feel about digital culture’s impact on identity.
Padia’s designs challenge assumptions, pushing crochet beyond its folk origins to communicate something expansive and contemporary. Through delicate mirror embellishments and silver bells, his pieces reflect the push and pull between tradition and modernity, between heritage and luxury. This approach isn’t just innovative—it’s a direct counterpoint to an industry that, over the last decade, has churned out homogenized products for global consumption, diminishing local identities in the process.
Courtesy of Yoshita 1967.
Courtesy of Yoshita 1967.
The appeal of craft is more than aesthetic; it’s an antidote to the anonymity of mass production. While the rapid growth of the luxury industry has made once-exclusive goods more accessible, it has also diluted their mystique. In a bid to reclaim that magic, many high-end brands are now reinvesting in craftsmanship, offering goods that feel rare. It’s a return to values that celebrate the human touch, the story behind the product, and the resilience of traditions that defy the digital age.
This return to craft is, ultimately, a return to human connection. It speaks not just about the industry but also about a deeper societal craving for meaning, connection, and belonging in our hyper-digital lives. An artisanal garment tells a story—of the designer, the artisans, the culture it draws upon, and the person who wears it. It connects us not just to the past but also to each other, weaving a shared narrative in which every thread, every bead, every stitch plays a part. And in a world so quick to forget the human hand in favor of the mechanical, it is precisely this connection that feels revolutionary.