Romina Karamanea is fast becoming one of the UK’s hot new fashion designers. She also happens to be both a client and close friend of Underband.

What do you do for a job and where are you based?

I am a fashion designer with my own luxury ready-to-wear brand, AW10 is the fourth season that we have been on the London Fashion Week calendar. The studio is based in an area called London Fields that is just east of the City of London. The area is amazing, really vibrant, with many creative neighbours and everything is happening right on our doorstep… We are lucky!

What is the most interesting project that you have ever worked on?

We were fortunate enough to be chosen for the much anticipated and acclaimed book ’100 new designers’ by Hywel Davies. The book looks at designers in the first ten years of their career. It is visually stunning and we are proud to be part of this. This led to our collaboration with Show Studio on a video day showcasing our brands aesthetics with Nick Knight. We are really pleased with this project and love Nick Knight, he is a true talent and visionary.

Which person has most influenced you?

Definitely my mother, she is so creative and is also very business-like with a strong spirit and an amazing aesthetic. She owned a successful boutique in Athens for many years whilst I was growing up and she is definitely a huge inspiration. Her house is full of interesting rare finds from all over the world and she is a very independent, powerful woman, which I admire greatly.

The thing that you’d be most surprised about me is….

That I am a bit of a tom-boy which is surprising as this season the aesthetic is much more feminine with flowing gowns, modern corsetry, sexy silk and tweed fabrics. When I was growing up I had a boys BMX bike and did karate, I was a total boy and today I love hanging out with the boys, especially my boyfriend’s band NoiseToy.

Who is your favourite designer (of any description)?

I love Madeleine Vionnet, she really celebrated the natural femininity of the female form, undoubtedly a true visionary and way ahead of her day. She was coined the ‘queen of the bias cut’ for her revolutionary cutting technique that was against the preceding eras definition of beauty with corsets and padding that distorted the female form as opposed to accentuating it.

What is your favourite city in the world and why?

Where I live London. It was funny as recently I went back to Greece, where I am from originally, and I could not wait to come home to London!!! It’s a unique city relative to others as there is so much going on at street level, you really do not need a lot of money to be involved from unique fashion, bands, parks and people I cannot get enough of it – even after 15 years!! It’s not synthetic like a lot of modern cities, you can always get lost and you can never get bored!

If there was only one dish you could eat for the rest of your life what would it be?

This is hard as my life is all about variation but I am a Carb girl, I know not very fashion, eh? So I would choose a potato as you can have chips, jackets, baked, boiled, fried in garlic and butter, am I allowed that….?

If you could invent anything, what would you invent and why?

A TIME MACHINE without doubt!!  I would go to all my favourite eras for inspiration and to hang out with the fine renaissance men, Tudors, Punks, Hippies and of course into the future to see what trends are coming out, and what pieces sell best before making them!!

What were you doing this time 10 years ago?

I was mainly partying, it was such a great time….I was hanging around Brick Lane meeting a lot of new interesting people (my friends that I am still hanging with today) having new crazy hairstyles and experimenting with a different style every weekend. I was also designing underwear for the high-street and had a lot of pocket money for partying!!

What’s your trend prediction for the next decade?

I think that we are going to see more ambiguous and androgynous fashion, style that blurs the line between gender ands sexuality. I think that people are getting tired of overt sexual references and also a little bored of obvious fashion revivals. I predict that clothes will function for both sexes more and more as we are seeing the traditional masculine and feminine roles fading in modern society so what we wear will reflect this. Which is why we are introducing a more unisex range for our first pre-collection that is launching this summer!

To view Romina’s work visit: RominaKaramanea.com or any leading fashion sites such as: Vogue.co.uk, DazedDigital.com