By Mira Postolache
We are pleased to welcome you into the world shaped by EVROPA—a bold fashion project founded in May 2022 by visionary designers Elena Finardi, Martina Rizzieri, and Anna Patricelli. As a brand that positions itself as more than a business, EVROPA calls itself a “project” with a mission: to cultivate a movement that advocates for environmental stewardship through the universal language of fashion.
With the urgent issue of textile waste looming larger than ever, the EVROPA team is committed to addressing this crisis head-on. Their manifesto—“Extreme Vision, Recycling Operation, Progressive Action”—embodies their proactive stance on creating a circular economy. By collaborating with Italian manufacturing firms, EVROPA seeks to recover and repurpose quality waste materials that would otherwise be destined for landfills. This commitment to sustainability not only minimizes environmental impact but also champions the creation of innovative and conscious collections.
The Spring/Summer 2025 collection, titled “Sunburnt and Cunt,” is a compelling reflection of this ethos. This collection celebrates a carefree summer spirit, inviting wearers to embrace their imperfections and express their individuality. The collection’s imagery was brought to life in collaboration with the MOODART School of Fashion Communication, showcasing the creative energy and fresh perspectives that young fashion students can offer. This collaboration is vital not only for the aesthetic realization of the collection, but also for fostering a collaborative relationship with upcoming talents and students in the fashion ecosystem. Each piece in the collection is designed with versatility in mind, allowing for an engaging interplay between casual beachwear and elegant evening attire.
The design process is rooted in the meticulous selection and analysis of reclaimed materials, ensuring that every garment reflects the brand’s commitment to sustainability while retaining a contemporary allure. The playful
inclusion of movable charms that evoke the sensation of “sunburnt skin” highlights the collection’s focus on personalization and individual expression, encouraging wearers to engage with their clothing in a dynamic way.
In this exclusive interview with EVROPA for Vanity Teen, we will discuss their innovative creative process, the significance of collaboration with educational institutions like MOODART, and how they are actively reshaping the conversation around fashion’s role in the fight against environmental degradation. As they strive to expand their
network of collaborations and pioneer initiatives that support a circular economy, EVROPA stands as a testament to
the belief that fashion can be a powerful vehicle for change.
Join us as we explore the inspiring world of EVROPA, their unyielding dedication to sustainability, and the unique narrative they weave through each collection—a narrative that not only aims to redefine style but also to protect our planet for future generations:
The name “EVROPA” suggests a larger cultural and environmental narrative. How does your brand align itself with contemporary movements in sustainability, and what role do you see fashion playing in the broader discourse on environmental protection?
The name Evropa carries with it the echo of an ever-changing mental and cultural geography. In this context, sustainability is not only an ethical choice, but an aesthetic and political stance. Evropa aligns with contemporary sustainability movements through a practice based on durability, local production, and transparency. Our garments are designed to stand the test of time, not only in terms of materials, but also in terms of language. We produce in limited quantities and favor reclaimed and deadstock fabrics. But fashion, for us, is also storytelling: a means to interrogate systems, deconstruct cultural disposability, and propose new imaginaries. We want each piece to not only dress, but speak – about the world we live in, and what we might build.
Ultimately, we see fashion not as an accessory to environmental discourse, but as its active agent. It is through what we choose to wear that we can redefine values, relationships, and desires.
Your manifesto emphasizes “extreme vision, recycling operation, progressive action.” Could you elaborate on how each of these elements specifically influences your design and production processes, especially in terms of sustainability and ecological impact?
Our manifesto is a statement of purpose, but also a working method. “Extreme vision, recycling operation, progressive action” are not just slogans: they are three axes on which each stage of our creative and production process is built. Extreme vision is the act of looking beyond – beyond seasonal trends, beyond the function of dressing, beyond the limits of conventional aesthetics. It is imagining radical forms, unexpected contaminations, visual languages that challenge linearity. In terms of sustainability, it also means thinking about the future: what does it mean to produce today for a tomorrow we want to be different?
Recycling operation is our concrete gesture. It is not just recovering materials-it is re-reading the past, taking it apart and reassembling it into new systems of meaning. We use deadstock or regenerated fabrics. Everything that is wasted becomes a resource, everything that is finished becomes a beginning. This approach reduces the environmental impact of production and allows us to work responsibly, but also creatively. Progressive action is ethics in motion. It is not just about what we do today, but how we strive to evolve. It is building local networks, adopting transparent processes, experimenting with alternative solutions to dominant industrial models. We believe that fashion cannot be sustainable without also being political, critical, and active. In short, our manifesto is a bit of our compass: it orients us in doing, but especially in remaking. Because sustainability, for us, is a continuous act of reinvention.
Given the exponential increase in textile waste over the past two decades, what specific strategies does EVROPA employ to minimize waste during production, and how do you ensure that the materials you select are not only high-quality but also accounted for in terms of their environmental footprint?
The exponential accumulation of textile waste is a symptom of a sick, hyper-productive, hyper-consumerist system. Evropa was born as a reaction to this: our goal is not just to reduce waste, but to completely rethink the way garments take shape.
Our anti-waste strategies are based on three guidelines:
1-Modular and limited production. We do not work by following seasonality, but rather make small capsules. We produce on a small scale, avoiding surplus and focusing on quality, not quantity.
2-Deadstock fabrics. We collaborate with suppliers and archives that allow us to salvage existing, often forgotten or deadstock materials and turn them into new raw materials. Each fabric is manually evaluated and selected by us.
3-Circular design. Our garments are constructed through patterns optimized to reduce waste at the cutting stage, and we also enhance leftovers, turning them into accessories, upholstery or new decorative elements. For us, sustainability is not a certificate to show off, but an ongoing relationship with what we choose to use. And every choice-every fiber, every seam, every label-is a statement of intent.
4-The concept of “sunburnt, carefree, and almost self-destructive energy” sounds intriguing. In what ways do you see this theme not just as a design choice but as a commentary on our relationship with nature, particularly in the context of climate change and environmental degradation?
“Sunburnt, carefree, and almost self-destructive energy” is an aesthetic that inhabits the border between seduction and disillusionment, between desire and harm. It is not just a visual choice: it is an open wound. With this campaign, we want to explore the body as an exposed landscape, as a surface traversed by sun, time, and error.
The sunburns – which in the campaign take the exact shape of Evropa garments worn in the sun – are not just a visual effect. They are a metaphor. They speak of a broken relationship with nature, in which the idea of “freedom” is confused with abuse, with excess, with unconsciousness. We live in a time when we burn ourselves out as lightly as we consume. The lightness we narrate is ambiguous: carefree, yes – but to what extent? Up to the bright red of the skin, up to the border between pleasure and destruction. It is our way of talking about climate change not with graphs, but with the marks left on the skin.
For us, fashion also means this: turning the body into visual and political language, making the surface speak, bringing out what is often ignored. Sunburnt is a campaign, but also a warning-an aesthetic of vulnerability and awareness.
Your creative process begins with the meticulous selection and analysis of reclaimed materials. Can you describe this process in detail?
How do you evaluate the sustainability and potential of these materials before integrating them into your collections?
Our creative process always begins with the recovery of materials. The materials we select are not chosen based on their ecological purity, but on their presence and potential. We work almost exclusively with recovered fabrics, and this often means dealing with materials that do not meet the classical parameters of sustainability (such as conventional cotton, blends, synthetics). But for us, the real ecological gesture is not to waste what already exists.
We reject the logic that puts sustainability only in the fiber, because we believe that context and conscious reuse are equally crucial.
Selection is a slow, almost instinctive process: we look for materials that have a tactile, visual, emotional quality.
Then we analyze their durability, workability, and transformability. Some fabrics are recovered in large cuts; others are small fragments that require unconventional tailoring solutions. This is where design begins: we do not impose a shape, but build it through the possibilities we have. Many of our garments are born from material constraints: irregular cuts, limited quantities, hybrid compositions. These constraints become a grammar: they suggest asymmetries, layering, modular constructions. Each garment is the result of a balance between respect for material and formal vision. Working with materials that are not “perfect” also requires a new ethic of care: we invite Evropa wearers to experience garments with care. This is how we understand sustainability: not as marketing, but as an active relationship with what is already there.
Collaboration appears to be fundamental to your mission of promoting a circular economy. How do you choose the Italian manufacturing partners you work with, and what shared values do you prioritize to ensure that the entire supply chain is aligned with your sustainability goals?
Collaboration is the basis of our way of doing fashion-not as outsourcing, but as an alliance. We believe that a circular economy cannot exist without a network of real, human, horizontal relationships based on the same ideas and values. This requires great flexibility, but also design sensitivity: those who work with us must be able to read not just a pattern, but a narrative. Sharing values is fundamental: transparency, dignity of labor, traceability, but also a kindred sense of aesthetics, a care for the gesture. We are not interested in “outsourcing” the work, but in building together. In this sense, the supply chain is an integral part of the message: a network of creative resistance, reactivating craft skills and proposing a concrete and radical alternative to industrial standardization.
The idea of customization and personal expression is central to your collection. How do you view the relationship between individual consumer choices and the larger goal of sustainability in fashion? Can personal expression and eco-consciousness coexist?
For us, personalization and sustainability are not in opposition. On the contrary: we believe that the opportunity to express oneself authentically is one of the most powerful ways to combat consumerist standardization and rediscover a more responsible relationship with what we wear. In a system that promotes the “new” as a continuous imperative, the act of choosing a garment because it really speaks about you, because it represents you, because it is unique, becomes a subversive gesture. When a person enters into a relationship with a garment, he keeps it, he cares for it, he transforms it. He does not discard it. This is where personal expression and eco-consciousness meet: in the
emotional durability of objects.
The imagery of “tan lines” and “sunburned skin” is also reflective of societal beauty standards and imperfection.
How do you incorporate these concepts into your designs while challenging conventional notions of beauty and promoting a more sustainable and inclusive approach in fashion? With Sunburnt, we chose to work with the aesthetics of obvious imperfection. The lines of the tan, the sunburn, the traces that garments leave on the skin are living marks.
Some cuts follow the curves of the tan, others reveal its excesses. It is a form of critical storytelling: the body is not an object to be perfected, but a surface that registers time, pleasure, risk. In this way, we challenge the classical canons of beauty and embrace a fashion that is more human, more lived, more inclusive-where sustainability is not only environmental, but also emotional and cultural.
You collaborated with MOODART School of Fashion Communication for the imagery shooting of your Spring/Summer 2025 collection. How was this experience, and what value do you see in working with fashion students in terms of creativity, fresh perspectives, and education?
The collaboration with MOODART has been a valuable experience, not only on a creative level but also on a human level. Working with students has allowed us to expand our visual language and challenge ourselves on a design level. There is a naive and radical strength in younger visions that we believe is essential to build a more dynamic and responsible future of fashion.
For us, this collaboration was not just an image production, but a real generative exchange: we shared our vision, they gave us back new perspectives. Investing in schools and emerging generations means investing in a different, more sensitive, deeper and more collective fashion culture.
Your collection transitions from dynamic beachwear to elegant evening looks, reflecting a duality in both style and mood. How does this transformation encapsulate the notion of sustainability—both in terms of the versatility of the garments and the lifestyle choices of consumers?
The SS25 collection was born from an idea of continuous transformation. The garments move with the wearer: from the light of the beach to the shadows of the evening. This duality is not only aesthetic, but design.It is a sustainability that speaks of reduction, versatility, durability. When a garment can live many lives, there is no need to multiply consumption. We propose fashion that follows the rhythm of life, not collections. In a world saturated with objects, our gesture is to subtract. To make a garment essential but mutable.
Many fashion brands focus solely on using natural fibers as a sustainability measure. How does EVROPA redefine sustainability beyond just material choice, particularly in terms of waste reduction, recycling, and using only natural fibers is not enough. It would be an easy solution, but it does not solve the systemic problem of waste and overproduction. Evropa redefines sustainability as a complex ecosystem, in which every gesture-from material recovery to partner selection, from design to communication-has weight.
We prefer to give new life to what already exists rather than to create “new and natural. Our work focuses on creative reuse of pre existing fabrics (deadstock and industrial waste), limited production, and intelligent design, designed to minimize waste. Even when we work with materials that are not “perfect,” we do so with critical intention. Sustainability, for us, is a conscious act, not a standard formula.
As sustainability becomes a crucial concern in the fashion industry, how do you measure the success of your initiatives at EVROPA? What metrics or indicators do you use to evaluate your impact on both the environment and the communities you work with?
We do not over-assess our impact on the environment through numbers but through the connections and relationships we have with our community and all the various players in the supply chain. We believe in a small, traceable supply chain that acts local but thinks global. Certainly then we have metrics that we evaluate every time we launch a new project such as the percentage of material recovered, the amount of general waste and reused internally.
Looking ahead, what are your long-term aspirations for EVROPA regarding sustainability? How do you envision expanding your mission, and what innovations or initiatives might you explore to further enhance your commitment to a circular economy in the fashion industry?
Our long-term goal is to expand EVROPA as a circular and cultural platform, not just as a brand. We want to create exchange networks between companies for the recovery of materials but not only. We are very interested in the contamination between the worlds of art, design and ecology. We are not only looking for technical innovations, but innovations in the way of thinking and living fashion and sustainability.
CREDITS:
Brand: EVROPA – @evropa000_
Photography: Marta Marinotti – @marta.marinotti
Photography Assistant: Valentina Cocci – @valentinacocciphotography
Make-up + Hair:Stella Terzi – @stellaterzimakeupartist
Lecturer & Mentor: Mirella Viale Marchino – @16mvm3ma
Creative & Educational Project Developer: Cecilia Bortolazzi – @cecilia_bortolazzi
Production Assistant: Giulia Carraro – @ggiuliacarraro
Models: Iryna Khiliuk + Yu-Chen Chen at BOOM MODELS – @boommodels
STYLING:
Isabella Acosta Justiz – @isacinica
Anna Carraro – @annacarraro__
Alessandra Ciccarelli – @thatsciccarelli
Mariachiara Esposito – @mariachiaraespositoo
Elena Fabris – @elenafabris
Beatrice Gioffrè – @beagioffre
Lorenzo Mazzanti – @loremazzanti4
Eleonora Pili – @elooppp
Aleksja Prendi – @aleksja_prendi
Elena Reggioni – @yaskgirl
Sanju Sciarrone – @sanjusciarrone
LOCATION:
MOODART School of Fashion Communication