- Hakan Öztunalı
Fallen Flowers Risen /w Blaubluth
Updated: Feb 26
Dear all, I would like you to meet with Blaubluth, sustainable dark avant-garde fashion brand formed by Lady Lea in Zurich, Switzerland. Galvanized by the vampiric zephyr. Lea’s manifesto is simple yet hermetic. Every piece of garment processed, curated in her boutique studio with compassion. After I talked with Lea, I realized that she has such a sensitive understanding for fashion about how to implement it for her beloved dark realm with devotion & kindness. One last word, please accept this unseen bouquet of fallen dried flowers which will enliven, blossom in your hands and become visible under your protection.
Could you please introduce yourself to our readers who may not know you yet?
Lea: Hi there. I am Lea, designer and founder of Blaubluth.
I would like to see creative brick and mortar stores. Blaubluth have a massive potential to be look like an actual vampire lair either a nest of a damned queen as a store or boutique. What does your studio look alike & any intention to design your lair?
Lea: That sounds adorable, I’d be be totally in building a whole Blaubluth universe. Starting with a nice store and studio hosted in an old victorian mansion or industrial loft. Meeting up with adorable Vampires and having a drink whilst sitting in velvet baroque thrones and chaises lounges, red roses on the tables, nipping on a blood red drink and bite one another.
But in fact my studio is located in my flat in the city of Zurich and I have to work 4 days a week in an usual office job to earn my money. But let’s keep dreaming. I’m a dreamer, that keeps me going. Dear Hakan, whenever I will make it to a Vampire Mansion you are going to be on my guest list!
Embodiment is impractical without a distinctive soul. Could you elaborate Blaubluth’s intellectual presence?
Lea: With Blaubluth I try to find the perfect balance between this dark, gloomy world and the ordinary. Being different is good as long as you don’t go beyond the point where you stand out negatively. I want to positively surprise people who don’t know our world yet.
Modernity is truly an interchangeable subject. How do you transcribe your methodology according to modernism?
Lea: I don’t follow any trends on purpose. But I always go through the world with open eyes. So it happens automatically that I absorb certain trends. Probably not even consciously.
When you initialized your vampiric business, what were the difficulties you encountered foremost?
Lea: To be honest, when I founded Blaubluth in 2011 I didn’t think much about all the difficulties raising this business might cause. I was very young and started to sell Elizabethan Ruffles on Etsy just when I started with studying fashion design.
Back then, I wasn’t under pressure making money out of it, so it was great for me making my first experiences with custom work and selling my hand made items. I founded my second brand JOY + GRIEF out of my final collection for fashion school. It’s a brand which is also dark and edgy but the otherness there is very restrained compared to Blaubluth.
I’ve had some success with this label. The most beautiful was definitely when I won a culture prize. But I always had the feeling that I couldn’t live out all my creativity and preferences at JOY + GRIEF. That’s why I’ve been thinking for a long time about designing a clothing collection for Blaubluth so that I can let off steam creatively. But I knew from the beginning that due to the fact I do everything myself, from design to sewing and therefore have to sell in a high price segment, it will be very difficult from a purely economic point of view.
The target group is very, very small and I have to find them or be found. But I just couldn’t resist and just did it. I’m not very good at praising myself and it takes a lot to be happy with myself. But I really like every part of this collection. In summary, thinking economically is a good thing. But if I had done that from the beginning and on, I would not have done anything.
How Lea’s universe and Blaubluth correlates in the midst of escapism?
Lea: Think you got me, it truly is my escapism. Art for me is dreaming awake. Or translate the experienced. But definitely very personal.
I think moulting is the path to reach wisdom with a cup of suffering, to form robust expression and communication. Do you created Blaubluth to make a better thyself?
Lea: While reading your question I have the poems of London after Midnights song Spider and the Fly in my head:
“Come over here and let me tell you something Nothing ever comes of nothing We pay a price for all our choices made..”
Being creative sometimes is a little suffering. And developing art or in my case fashion sometimes isn’t easy. It takes a lot of patience, time and a certain persistence. If something works for the first time already, believe me that’s a lucky punch but not usual.
A funny fact is that I am a very impatient person, except whilst sewing. And I am not that picky and I can leave things as they are. But not when it comes to sewing. I’m a hopeless perfectionist and a merciless detractor. This is my path with every Blaubluth piece. To stay patient and not to question myself all the time.
It is almost impossible to become satisfying for everyone, even for your narrowed audience. What do you actually feel, when someone criticize your work in a negative way and demotivates you?
Lea: Yes, you are right. It’s not possible to be liked by everyone. Neither personally nor professionally. I think it’s in our nature that we want to be loved by everyone. Fortunately until now no one said to me directly that my work is disgusting.
But once an old friend ghosted me a few years ago. Later I heard from another friend that she told him that she can’t stand my work and the fact that she had to look at it on Facebook. That really hurted me, because I never really knew why she ghosted me out of a sudden. I am a dreadful overthinker, much too often thinking of the past and mistakes I’ve done.
People come and go, that’s live. Hard to accept but I am trying to. I try to focus on those who support me. Well it’s easy to give wise advices, You can guess if I am good in doing so or not.
After all this while, especially for the temporary tedious trends in fashion, how do you defend yourselves in your bulwark?
Lea: My aim is to design time less collections which can be worn on and on. And I want to be part of the change in fashion industry which is urgently needed.
Dark fashion based on phantasy, esotericism, mysticism and devotion. Can dark fashion become a medium for enhancing the sustainability?
Lea: For me, the dark fashion scene seems to be the perfect place to convey the idea of a more sustainable way of fashion. This scene has an essence of sensitive, intelligent, questioning people.
You have chosen the decorum of a vampire discipline. By extension, how do you fulfill your energy bar when you feel wretched?
Lea: It depends. It can be an escape to nature, a run or a coffee, phone call or a gin tonic with a lovely person.
I appreciate sharing your precious leisure time for me. Any last words before flying away in your bat form?
Lea: Thank you Hakan. Your questions challenged me and it was a pleasure to answer them. If there’s someone out there having some more you can contact me at any time.
Credits
Blaubluth’s official Webstore Page: blaubluth
Lea’s Instagram Page: @l_hew
Model, Photoshoot: @volodina.model
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