ROHAN MIRZA for Glamcult #142, The ANIMA Issue

Translating the eerie virtual into otherworldly designs, ROHAN MIRZA beckons us into the uncanny garden that he sews. A place where he taps into the limitless book of human imagination to sculpt digital dreams into existence. As a result of this intuitive vision, Mirza is redefining where the boundaries of fashion lie; carving a space in the industry for video-game physics and offbeat internet humour.

Raised​​ in the notorious Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of Paris (“93” colloquially), Mirza is a child of the internet. Having grown up chronically online, he ventured far and wide, exploring the video game worlds the imaginative minds before him designed. Some years — and many games — later, Mirza enrolled at École Duperré Paris where he would find his medium of creation: 3D printing. But while the school had the technology available, it wasn’t the craft they specialised in. And so, Mirza had to take mastering the medium into his own hands.

After graduating, he channelled this very ambition into establishing his design studio, Rohan Mirza Studio. From spiked metal bows to alien glasses, he began showcasing his signature genre-bending accessories that seamlessly rethink conventional silhouettes. These accessories explore bodily decoration through a sci-fi lens, drawing upon both the natural and cybernetic world to create new forms of adornment. Naturally, his ideas attracted some of music’s greats, leading him to design for Beyoncé, Grimes, Quavo Huncho, and La Fève, to name a few. And the momentum knew no bounds, with his work garnering attention from the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier where Mirza designed the claws worn by Bella Hadid herself. These early achievements have set the tone for Rohan Mirza’s path, foreshadowing an even greater success that was soon to follow.

It had been some time since Mirza and his friends had graduated from Duperré and the looming reality of the future was setting in. There was an unquenched thirst to do something grand while they still had complete and unrestrained creative freedom: “We knew we needed to do something important this year and everyone was in so we were like, ‘Let’s go crazy and bring everything we want to the collection,’ and that’s exactly what happened.” And from this, NUKETOWN was born.

NUKETOWN is a collection of 20 characters with their own uniquely haunting personalities — an immediate restructuring of the classic runway story. “It was intentional to make each character really different,” he shares. “We were bored with all the fashion shows with 80 looks that all resemble each other.” Rather than building a narrative, Mirza sought to design each look like a video game skin wherein the looks are meant solely for the individual characters. In fact, many of the pieces are direct references from video games themselves: “We always have our character’s wearing armour. At times, we directly rework elements from multiple games and bring them together to make something totally new in a character.”

Evidently, many of the reference games for NUKETOWN were horror. But horror games aren’t the only inspirations Mirza and his friends looked to. Using the internet they grew up with, the collection is infused with irreverent Twitter humour — like with their “sex scares me” slogan — mixed with creepypasta myths and a touch of cuteness, stitching together a complex matrix of detailed horror, wit, and adorability.

But, adorability, you may ask? Yes, there is an added layer of playfulness meant to complexify the notion of horror itself: “I really wanted to do a type of creature that is cute like a teddy bear but is also scary,” Mirza explains. “We then landed on the idea of the monster.” And from this, the Monster Boots — and cut of trousers — were born. These oversized, almost paw-esque shapes boldly move beyond simple notions of humanness in a manner that feels protective and cutesy at the same time.

Beyond their conceptual complexities, the Monster Boots further exemplify the technical innovation NUKETOWN exhibits. The team brought together their individual skills and melded them, resulting in the ability to craft their more-than-human ideas into actuality. As Mirza explains, “It was important for us to develop a lot of techniques around 3D printing. We didn’t want to just print stuff out but really use 3D printing as a tool to expand fashion techniques.”

While in no way their intention, NUKETOWN was caught by the algorithms and gently placed on everyone’s for you page, going viral overnight. “When we were making the collection, we weren’t even thinking that it could go viral or anything. And then when it happened, we were like ‘What the fuck?’”. The look that specifically caught the eyes of many was Look 10, the Hardcore ‘93 skin jersey where “HARDCORE 93” is dramatically branded on the back of the model — made of SFX, of course. This collection-wide motif is a homage to the French song “93 Hardcore” by 93 rappers Tandem: Mac Tyer, and Mac Kregor — a song that is emblematic of Mirza’s childhood in the same district. The word “hardcore” became an important word to the group, thus it only felt right to include the nostalgic reference.

Endearing nostalgia is embedded throughout the visual language of NUKETOWN. Mirza shares: “We all had a childhood, and while it wasn’t necessarily better back then, it was so important for us that we needed to put it in our work. That’s how we are going to do something that stays personal to us.” And that’s the thing about Mirza’s work –  there is a visual language that is so reminiscent for many but has yet to be introduced to the fashion industry. In his own words, “It’s complicated for us to be a part of the fashion world in Paris because we did not have the same childhood as many of the people there. We’re trying to do our own thing that brings people together who understand, and to create a space for all of us. At the same time, we want to introduce people to this world, show them things they’ve never seen before.”