Seven Days Before the Show: Inside Designer Rohan Mirza’s DIY Dystopia

The first time I spoke to Rohan Mirza, the twenty-three-year-old had just debuted his first collection and was still sifting through constant social media tags raving about his nude illusion shirt with raised skin on the back, signifying sports jersey branded directly onto the skin – or skin shirt, made completely of silicone. Simultaneously touching on humans speared into capitalism and young rebels with causes, it’s perhaps telling that what Mirza spends most time on is worldbuilding, rather than the commercial – it’s not absent, considering the limited drops of items he’s planning from his current collection – but as a child of the internet, playing video games and gulping on brainrot meme culture, the image is what he works with. 

Obsessed with the image of a peeling apple, him and a friend generated an entire look around that – the brownish-red of a rotting apple transferred to the dress which disintegrates on the ground in curves. “We are really obsessed with apples in the studio,” he says seriously, “We love the fruit.” Another dress airbrushed blue and yellow on either side harks back to the controversial blue and gold dress everyone was debating about in the noughties. Previously working in a space in his father’s shop and now in a Montreuil studio, Mirza and his friends – who have become his collaborators – started on this collection six months ago, making it work as independent artists and designers working gigs alongside. We took a peak at Mirza’s fashion diary a week before the showcase as he took us inside his studio.  

SUNDAY 

9am: We woke up – since a month I have been living in the studio along with two more team members. This was the start of the most important week for us. Clothes are already made at this point – just finishing touches. It was primarily communicating the show online that we were thinking about then. 

12pm: On the parking lot of the show ground with Sarah – our scenographer and testing out fake blood, which is supposed to rain on everyone at the end. The collection is about a wedding, and their family is trying to protect them – like families do – from everything around them. I play Call of Duty and other dystopian games, so I often have guns modelled after the game on the runway – but I denaturalise them by making them in plastic and thus highlight their uselessness as relics of another world. It’s the same core team of friends I have been working with since my last collection – including Sarah, Loise and Marie my creative partner – this time we pushed the collection further and worked like a well-oiled machine. We know each other better and realise where we want to go. Perhaps that’s the best thing about working with friends. 

6pm: Shooting the show teaser with watch patterns on skin made out of silicone. 

3am: Finally in bed for the next four or five hours. 

MONDAY 

9am: Armand is in the studio, tattooing on our polo shirt in silicone – like we did in our last collection. He’s a friend and a tattoo artist and he just treats the silicone like skin. We are planning to release a more wearable version of it with printed graphics or embroidered. 

12pm: Fittings start for our latex dress with the dollar bills with the designer Juliette Pasquier, who we were collaborating with. We had been working on it for the past two months and it was the first time when we saw the model wear it that we were like, wow it’s working – someone can actually wear it. 

10pm: Armand is still in the studio. 

TUESDAY

9am: Sending out invites – Armand is back. The days are rolling into one. 

6pm: Sarah is painting the @ on plastic bags and placing them on the show ground, so we have a reference of where we are going to plant the grass around the symbol, so the shape is visible from aerial view. It starts raining – somehow, she makes it work. Happiness all around. 

2am: The hairdresser Ushka is working on wigs, and it’s really fun to watch him. He was coming in late and going even later. 

WEDNESDAY

8am: Alex and I are sitting before a laptop working on putting our show costumes inside the modding game Guitar Hero – that will be our pre-show release. Alex is a good friend, who was also going to do a life performance at the show. This game is really important for me as you can customise and design clothes for the characters, and I was playing it a lot as a child. 

12pm: Armand is back with his tattoo machine. 

3pm: Studio is hand-sewing some of the dollar bills on that particular dress – there are 1,500 bills to be sewn. 

6pm: Putting your own designs in a game is tough! We’re still at it. 

THURSDAY

8am: I wake up – everyone has fallen asleep around the dresser. I take a picture. 

9.30am: The models arrive, and we do a test print of a silicone wing on someone’s back. We have a functional 3D printed thick zipper on a cotton running hoodie – it’s working. We do a fitting for a dress that wasn’t working at all. It is really bad, and we are stressing out. 

11pm: Badges are being pinned on a velvet jacket. It’s a direct reference to Bob Lenon – the guy was a YouTuber making Minecraft videos when we were younger. In all the videos he’d wear the same jacket – red velvet with a ton of badges on it. He’s one of the bigger YouTubers we have in France, and his look was quite edgy to use. Each badge was designed by us – they’re like a moodboard to the show. They took two and a half weeks to make and perfect. 

12pm: Pharo arrives – he’s a great friend and a painter who painted one of the shoes in my last collection. He started airbrushing the shoes and shirts. 

1pm: Quick lunch break – first meal of the day. Noone had time to eat, we were always skipping breakfast, and sometimes dinner. We order sandwiches or something you can pop in the microwave from a place – cheap and really fast. We didn’t have a microwave last year in the studio but this year we realised we need it!

FRIDAY

9.30am: Two days before the show. Three or four models are in the studio, and we are doing last fittings. Everything is working as we wanted. 

1pm: A lot of 3D printing is being done. This time we have feathers on the shoes – I was really inspired by Jeremy Scott who uses feathers and wings – we started making the shoes in August with flexible material so they don’t break. Each pair was taking three days to make. It is a big thing we have had to do – just in time for the show – as we really want to make our own shoes this year. 

2pm: Grass has also arrived and Sarah and the rest of the scenography team head out to put grass on the runway. 

6pm: We see our runway with grass for the first time – and it looked great. It is a really good day. 

SATURDAY

6am: Up and about – we must finish scenography today and Armand should complete his tattoos. 

2pm: Loise is making silicone bubble-gum. We loved characters blowing these gums on cartoons as children – it’s always about the reference with us. It can be difficult to instantly make a bubble onstage so I just had Loise make them as a mouth accessory. It’s quite funny. 

6pm: The first rehearsal of the live performance. The rock music – so good to look at, after working on it for so long. 

12am: Starting to print the remaining shoes. 

4am: Finally in bed – some shoes are still left, will complete in the morning. 

SHOW DAY

8am: Arrivée at show space – and everybody scuttles to their teams. 

9.30am: Models arrive for glam and hair. Lookbook shoot is on and the entire day it’s a long trail of people who are coming and going – doing pictures and video – it’s a blur. Along with that is the waiting for the show. 

12pm: I send someone back to the studio for something that we needed printed – shoot! We’ve been printing accessories for the past two months and had to choose items we wanted for the runway. 

3pm: Theodora arrives – she’s guest start and a really cool artist in France. She’s very young and is doing really cool stuff. We have been working with her before stardom struck her, and she’s been a great friend of the brand. It felt quite natural to put her on the runway. We did fittings with her two weeks before as she’s not always in Paris – now swift hair and makeup. 

4pm: Lunch is here – today I asked my family to send food from their restaurant for everyone on set. It’s fried chicken – so good and chill. The best stuff to have before a show when you’re stressed out. 

6.30pm: We’re running late! 

7.30pm: The show starts – I am running everywhere backstage – and after it ends, I’m running everywhere, front stage, to talk to everyone – very cool!

9.30pm: We’re pulling out grass from the runway as the school has classes next day – Monday – so we must clean everything. 

2am: Everyone is tired and is heading home. No rest for the devil as we must return tomorrow to clear out the last bits of the runway. No time for a nice dinner – but time to sleep.

Photography courtesy Rohan Mirza Studio, Tavan Esmaili, Louise Sauvard and Roxane Sauvage