Aseef Vaza

Aseef Vaza is a super talented luxury accessories designer, working in London. He grew up around pharmacists in his family, and that initially had some influence on him, since Aseef Vaza counted himself fit to be biologist. But all of a sudden something switched in his aspirations, a great influence particularly was caused by a famous British couturier Bruce Oldfield, whose sketches Aseef was adored with. His father was an entrepreneur who was busy managing and growing his halal poultry business, and his mother used to make her own clothes from time to time. Luckily, due to parents' commercial and creative backgrounds, they were very supportive of Aseef Vaza, wanting to study and eventually start his own fashion business.

He studied at Ravensbourne and Central Saint Martins, both in London. He learnt discipline from the former and creative freedom from the latter. Aseef Vaza enjoyed learning the technique of moulage (sculpting cloth on the mannequin) at Hans Muller, where he had interned for a year before the Chelsea School of Art, as he was not a big fan of flat pattern-making. Art deco, Paul Poiret, Madeleine Vionnet, Erté, origami, geometric shapes and architecture inspired his work.

Before setting up his own brand in 2004, Aseef has honed his design skills in the renowned fashion houses such as Anna Molinari, Louis Feraud, Lanvin and Jean Louis Scherrer, where he incorporated his ready-to-wear experience into his own label, experimenting with shape and form. Reportedly, he stumbled upon his design signature, while assisting at Carven Couture, one of Paris’ oldest haute couture houses, which chief designer's style reminded him a little of the sketches, Oldfield did early in his career. Aseef Vaza was asked to design two clutches to accessorize some of the maison’s couture designs. This stimulated the start of his own business just a few years later.

In 2008 Aseef successfully defended himself against Arcadia Group, whose copy he discovered in one of those "get it for cheaper" features in the Sunday Times Style Magazine as seen in the banner image above. Also Aseef has taken on Judith Lieber for her Twilight clutch, which he insists is a copy of his own Elsie clutch.