“A REFLECTION OF WHERE WE COME FROM, AND WHERE WE’RE GOING.”
Aqui is a clothing brand concept I developed throughout the third year of my design course. It focuses on creating pieces inspired by Portuguese culture and heritage, reinterpreting traditional references in a clean and modern way.
The first collection takes inspiration from Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood, its fishing roots, and the patterned tiles on its buildings. I designed and made three shirts based on the ones fishermen used to wear, reinterpreting them with a more updated and contemporary silhouettes and details.
For this project, I had to take on every aspect of creating a clothing brand: research, design, production, and creative direction. Along the way, I learned technical skills like sewing, digital embroidery, and even how to design and build a website, while also gaining insight into the challenges of building a brand, from ideas that didn’t work to mistakes that became learning opportunities.
This is the kind of work I’m most excited to keep doing in the future. Aqui is still a project I’m developing, and my goal is to grow it into a real and functioning clothing brand.