THE BRAND
Founded by Dorottya Csókási, Chokassy is a Budapest-based label focusing on regenerative, low-impact design. After recently graduating from Central Saint Martins, London, specializing in Womenswear fashion, Dorottya moved back to Budapest to launch her brand and expand her design identity, further exploring her BA Collection’s narrative ‘Ecce Tenebrae- Shed-off’. The brand wishes to unravel an innovative attitude towards an incorporative, circulative design practice. Chokassy is based on responsible creativity, praising heritage, reworked into uncompromising innovation, to lead toward a more conscious approach to modern everyday life.
THE COLLECTION
‘Ecce Tenebrae’ represents a metamorphosis, a road with its struggles in creating one’s ideal self. The Latin title translating to ‘let there be shadow’, refers to the action of self-creating from the point of struggle and unrealized suffocation. The first look ‘Dark Ilushka’ is the primitive and unconscious self that will slowly be understood and shedded off. The archetypes evolve until reaching the moment of bliss, meeting the criteria of one’s ideal self. The transformation is narrated through the juxtaposition of colour and fabric choices, dark upcycled, torn leathers being translated into artisanal off-white linens.
’Ecce Tenebrae’ is a sustainable manifesto that addresses the three pillars of sustainability through promoting circulative designs, collaborating with and elevating local artisans and craftsmen, reusing and repurposing highly durable, low-impact, natural fabrics, keeping in mind social equity, providing fair and pleasant working environment. The collection is made of ’rebirthed’ animal skin for durability avoiding the fueling of plastic-based vegan leather production; repurposed organic, hand-woven linen, that strongly connects to and represents community and heritage-based design processes. The making procedure consists of smart-cutting, prioritizing zero-waste, enhancing circulative thinking, and the ’make-do and mend’ life approach that was inherent in Hungarian cultures.