View all 26 images

I lived to tell - although I would prefer to forget those low rise jeans - the story of how we used to dress during the 00s, when all that glittered actually was gold. Money and bling was dripping like wet hair in our “endless Greek summer party” mood, our cars were as big as our dreams, fashion was as loud as a Greek family dinner and as obvious as our aspirations for an image we couldn't afford.

And then 2008 happened and what for the rest of the world was the Great Recession, for us here in Greece felt like the Greatest Recession and The Loudest Shuttering of Dreams ever heard. Talk about pulling the very fat, very luxurious, bought on a loan rug from under nouveau riche feet. Our cars turned out to be as big as our debts and crashed on our dreams, the bubble burst, the music stopped and the party was over - so was fashion and our relationship with it as we knew it.

« If New York is the city that never sleeps, Athens is the city that never gives up. »

However, if New York is the city that never sleeps, Athens is the city that never gives up. Athenian millennials didn't attempt to restore our previous order and fashions, but aimed at reconfiguring our world and our city as a better place. What now seems to gently follow the prolonged Greek economic crisis is a new generation, rising like a contemporary and fair to all Phoenix from the ashes, taking steady steps forward, knowing how high to fly so as not to burn like Icarus and the Boomers before them, dreaming in warm colours and armed with a sense of shared fair and humane values.

« Armed with a sense of shared fair and humane values. »

Designers, brands and creatives in Athens, like Adonis, Serapis Maritime, Daniel Adhami and Adam Khalil give shape to a new era, elevating their craft and our society with inspiring artistry, touching essence, meaningful form, humanity, quality and ethos. And while the cuts on the clothes they design and the focus on the values they aspire to might be sharp, they embrace fluidity - sexual and social -, multicultural interaction, open minds and horizons, forming in their turn an open circle, where freedom to express and dress as one feels flourishes through the cracks of our old cement walls. For us, the contemporary and still hopeful Athenians, their craft has been our raft.

YANNIS KYRIAZOS - Hair Stylist
ADAM KHALIL - Adonis Talent
CAMILLE KEOVONGSA - Serapis Talent
FILIUS-MIHAIL CANAKIS - Adonis Talent
ITA LITWINIEC - Adonis Talent
KONSTANTINOS KOMNINOS - Serapis Talent

• ADONIS @adonis.eu
• SERAPIS MARITIME @serapismaritime
• DANIEL ADHAMI @danieladhami
• ELINA DIMITRIADI

• #fashion
• #greece