About the designer: Peleg Assulin
What was the initial spark that drew you to fashion design, and how has your vision evolved since then?
I didn’t grow up dreaming of fashion in a traditional sense. My entry point was more instinctive — it came from a need to process and translate emotions that didn’t have a clear language. During the stillness of the pandemic, I found myself drawn to making, to constructing something physical out of uncertainty.
Since then, my vision has shifted from exploration to intention. What started as curiosity became a commitment to storytelling. Today, I see fashion less as clothing and more as a medium — something that can hold memory, conflict, tenderness. My work has become more focused on creating a dialogue between past and present, between what protects us and what exposes us.
Which materials, techniques, or cultural influences are central to your current work, and why?
Material is never just material for me — it carries memory and story.
I work a lot with upcycled military garments, vintage workwear, coffee sacks, and naturally dyed fabrics. There’s something powerful about taking materials that were once functional, even protective, and recontextualizing them into something intimate and emotional.
Techniques like melting fabrics, distressing lace, or hand-dyeing with coffee are ways of breaking down perfection. I’m interested in surfaces that feel worn, unstable, almost like they’ve lived a life before arriving at the body.
Culturally, I’m drawn to historical garments — like Elizabethan elements — but I never want them to feel nostalgic. It’s more about creating a dichotomy: between structure and fragility, armor and vulnerability.
Can you describe your design process — from concept to final garment? What does a typical day in your studio look like?
My process is very tactile and nonlinear. It usually starts with an image or a feeling rather than a fixed idea — something atmospheric. From there, I begin collecting materials intuitively, letting them guide the direction.
I don’t sketch in a conventional way. I drape, deconstruct, reconstruct. A lot of decisions happen directly on the body or the form. The garment reveals itself through the process.
A typical day in the studio is a mix of chaos and precision. There are moments of complete control — pattern making, fitting — and then moments where I deliberately let things fall apart. I think that dichotomy is essential to the final piece.
Your silhouettes speak in a certain dialect. What emotions or tensions are stitched into them?
There’s always a push and pull between strength and vulnerability.
The silhouettes often carry a sense of protection — structured shoulders, corsetry, utilitarian references — but they’re interrupted by softness: sheer layers, exposed seams, fragile textures.
I’m interested in the moment where something that looks like armor starts to feel intimate. Where control breaks slightly. Where the body is both held and revealed.
Emotionally, the work sits somewhere between resilience and tenderness. It’s about surviving something, but also allowing yourself to feel it.
What challenges have you faced as an emerging designer, and how have they shaped your approach to the industry?
One of the biggest challenges is building something from nothing — especially without resources. Producing a runway show independently forces you to rethink everything: how to create impact without excess, how to rely on community, how to stay honest to your vision under pressure.
It made me more resourceful, but also more intentional. I had to ask myself constantly: what actually matters in this work?
It also reinforced the idea that fashion doesn’t have to follow a fixed system. There’s space to build your own structure, your own rhythm — one that aligns with your values rather than industry expectations.
Tell us a secret about your brand.
There’s always something slightly unresolved in my work — intentionally. I’m not trying to create perfection.
I’m more interested in the moment before something is fully complete, when it still feels alive, unstable, and open to interpretation. I think that’s where honesty lives.
About the photographer: Kori He
How does intuition guide you when you’re behind the lens — do you follow chaos or control?
I don’t separate intuition from structure — intuition happens inside a very clear framework. Before shooting, I usually build a very precise emotional and spatial logic. In this series, the character is a “drifter” — someone suspended between indulgence and disinterest, existing in a temporary space like a hotel suite. That idea already defines how she moves, how she occupies the bed, and how she touches objects.
But once I start shooting, I stop directing too tightly. I allow small disruptions — a gesture that becomes careless, a moment where she stops “performing elegance.” That’s where intuition comes in. So I don’t follow chaos. I create a controlled situation where chaos can reveal something truthful.
What emotion do you find yourself chasing the most when you shoot?
I think I’m always chasing a kind of detachment. Not in a cold way, but more like a distance. I’m really drawn to that pull between presence and absence — when someone is physically there, but their mind has already drifted somewhere else. Those in-between moments matter more to me than any clear emotion. Like when a gesture is unfinished, or when the subject is caught in the middle of something, not fully aware of being seen.
In this series, she’s constantly moving between indulgence and detachment. She’s doing things that should feel excessive or emotional, but there’s always a slight disconnect. That contradiction is usually what pulls me in.
What’s the most fragile thing about your creative process?
The most fragile part is the moment when the subject stops performing and starts existing. Everything in my work depends on that shift. The styling, the references, even the narrative — they’re all constructions. They create a kind of surface. But if the subject stays aware of that surface, the image just becomes decorative.
What I’m really waiting for is a small rupture — when that control slips. It can be very subtle. A hesitation, a gesture that doesn’t quite “fit,” a moment where she’s no longer presenting herself but simply drifting. There’s also a kind of negotiation happening. The subject is aware of being seen, I’m aware of constructing the image, and somewhere in between, something real either appears or doesn’t. That moment is extremely fragile. You can’t direct it, and the more you try to reach for it, the more it disappears.
When do you know a photograph is finished — or do you believe in letting it remain imperfect?
I don’t think in terms of completion. I think in terms of charge. A photograph is finished when the charge between elements holds — between the garment and the body, between control and collapse, between elegance and something more destructive underneath.
In this series, I was influenced by Helmut Newton — the precision, the constructed sensuality — but I wasn’t interested in resolution. I wanted the image to feel slightly unstable, even slightly uncomfortable, sometimes unsettling. So I often leave things imperfect on purpose. Imperfection allows the image to keep breathing.
How does your environment (city, solitude, noise) shape your visual language?
I’m drawn to narrow, temporary spaces — places that feel intimate, but also a bit distant. Spaces that are private, but not really personal.
For this series, the hotel room was very important. It has this sense of anonymity. It’s a space where identity feels slightly suspended — you’re not fully yourself, but you’re also not performing for anyone in particular. Living in a city like New York, there’s always movement, noise, people. But what I’m more interested in is the isolation within that. That moment when someone is finally alone, within a contained space, and there’s nothing left to perform.
That’s usually when something starts to shift — when the charge becomes visible.
Whose gaze do you shoot for — your own, the subject’s, or the viewer’s?
I start from my own gaze, but I’m not trying to fix how the image should be read. I’m more interested in keeping something unresolved — where the subject isn’t fully accessible, and the image doesn’t explain itself. There’s always a slight distance. Because of that, the viewer ends up bringing their own gaze into it. They’re still outside the image, but at the same time, they step into it in a way — projecting their own reading, their own story.
The subject also holds her own space. She’s not there to be fully understood or consumed. Her presence, her resistance, even her indifference all shape how the image unfolds. I think the intimacy I’m drawn to comes from that overlap — between how I see, how she exists, and how the viewer enters the image.
Credits:
Photography: Kori He / @kk.koriii
Fashion: Peleg Assulin / @peleg_assulin
Set Design: Boyi Xu / @lxthlx_
Makeup: Chloe Yang / @chloeee_makeupartist
Hair: Nyema / @nythebraider
Photo Assistant: He Li / @taniraliii
Model: Sarah O’Grady / @sarah.g.ogrady
Abyss of Deception