Most people assume collections begin with intention.
Mine begin with questions.
I don’t start with a collection.
I don’t force one either.
For years I believed good design required certainty — a clear direction, a strong concept, a confident plan. Now I understand that the opposite is often true.
The best work arrives slowly.
Narrative has become the foundation of my process. I only recently realised how much easier it is to create something meaningful when it carries a deeper story.
The IDIO Collection was not a commercial brief.
It was a personal conversation.
Self-expression.
Self-doubt.
Fear of judgment.
Translating those emotions into furniture allowed me to process them in a way words never could.
Too often designers explain their work with easy references: “I was inspired by a building,” or “by this chair,” or “by that trend.” But the real question is always deeper.
Why did that building move you?
What did it make you feel?
That emotional layer is where true design begins.
My ideas don’t arrive as logical plans. I don’t wake up deciding to design a daybed. Inspiration comes in fragments — from dreams, museums, couture shows, or simply the feeling of a material in my hands.
And sometimes, inspiration arrives in the most unexpected way.
On the 11th of January 2026, I had a vivid dream. In it, I was travelling to Kazakhstan, filming cultural narratives for a new collection campaign. I remember waking up with an overwhelming sense of joy and clarity — as if I had been shown a glimpse of something deeply meaningful waiting to be created.
I took that feeling as a sign.
Not as a literal plan, but as permission to design something more personal, more cultural, more layered — with a twist. I don’t yet know exactly what that collection will be, but I know the emotion behind it. And that emotion is guiding me forward.
I will keep exploring haute couture and traditional craft methods, allowing them to influence and shape what comes next. I’m curious to see how these worlds will meet and transform my work.
Talking about a collection that doesn’t exist yet puts a lot of pressure on an artist. But I also know the feeling I had in that dream — the deep joy and certainty — and that is something worth trusting.
I’m constantly inspired by disciplines outside furniture. Haute couture taught me that design doesn’t need to please everyone to be powerful. Designers like McQueen, Schiaparelli, and Margiela showed me that discomfort and vulnerability can be creative tools.
And most importantly, materials themselves guide the work.
How they age.
How they behave.
How they carry memory.
Often, the material already knows what the piece wants to become.
This is how my process begins — slowly, intuitively, and without forcing the result.
Part 2 will be about translating feeling into form.