Last month at Athens Fashion Week, Greek-American fashion designer Sophia Zarifopoulos debuted her first collection, “The Reigning Balkan Princess,” for her brand Sophia Chantal, earning her the award for Best New Designer. The collection featured an array of one-of-a-kind garments made from “semedakia” — traditional Greek lace — draped on the models as if they were contemporary marble statues.
Blending nostalgic Balkan aesthetics with a contemporary edge, “The Reigning Balkan Princess” was the culmination of years of Zarifopoulos’s efforts to understand her design identity, marking a professional turning point and a tide shift in her personal development.
Photo by: Yiannis Spanos
While this is only the beginning, Zarifopoulos is finally enjoying the fruits of her labor, which grew from the seeds planted in childhood.
The Spark
It started with a reevaluation. Zarifopoulos knew who she was meant to become from an early age; her only challenge was getting others to see her vision. At five years old, she stubbornly resisted her mother’s efforts to dress her for school, but eventually her mother noticed that she had an eye for fashion. By the time she was 11, Zarifopoulos was dressing her mother for work.
Growing up in New York, she was surrounded by fashion, but once she got an early taste of the scene in Manhattan, she realized that, rather than propelling her forward, the city was suffocating her.
“The rat race in New York really held me back from doing anything creative. I had no time, no energy. It was work, work, work all the time, while also trying to be a person,” she told TO BHMA International Edition. “Like, wait, I have to make money, and I have to be a person in society, and I can’t be a mermaid? What do you mean?”
Instead of letting time pass her by and praying that it would somehow get better, Zarifopoulos decided to take matters into her own hands. She picked up everything and moved to Greece to give herself the life she always knew she deserved.
Relocation and Rejection
In the spring of 2023, Zarifopoulos moved to the quaint Cycladic island of Amorgos, where she rediscovered her creativity and detoxed from the concrete labyrinth of New York City.
After her brief stint as the self-proclaimed “Queen of the ‘Horio’”—meaning, “Queen of the Village”—she moved to Athens that fall to pursue fashion, but a year later, disaster struck.
In the fall of 2024, Zarifopoulos arrived on the set of My Style Rocks, a reality competition show where competitors are judged on their budgeted styling choices, convinced she would soar. But having not seen a single episode prior, her naivety got the best of her.
“I thought I was going to a place where I would be seen and recognized, but it was the complete opposite. They crushed my spirit. I felt so talentless, but especially misunderstood.”
Feeling misunderstood was not unfamiliar, but coming to Greece, Zarifopoulos felt like she was coming into her own. She was connecting with people, and creativity was pouring out of her. As she started to feel like she was about to get her foot in the door to the fashion world, it felt like the dream she had traveled so far to fulfill was ripped from her white-knuckled grasp.
“I completely gave up on clothes for a while. And it gave me a little fear going into fashion week. If they didn’t get me there, are they gonna get me here? Probably not, but let’s go for it.”
Debut and Redemption
After a year of trying to dig herself out of the hole of self-doubt, largely with the help of the community she started to build in fashion, she was able to build the confidence to take her debut collection, “The Reigning Balkan Princess,” to Athens Fashion Week.
A self-described anarchist, Zarifopoulos never starts a garment in a traditional manner. Instead, she lets clothes design themselves, using her hands as a vehicle to actualize them.
“I don’t use a pattern, I don’t sketch before, I don’t conceptualize before. I make clothes like a Disney princess. I cut the curtains and just put them on the mannequin. It’s manic, but I’m obsessed with it.”
But through TikTok and Instagram, Zarifopoulos built an audience that fell in love with her playful persona, and she came to understand that people wanted garments that aligned with her authenticity.
“I’ve noticed that the first thing someone says to me when they try on my clothes is ‘I don’t want to take it off.’ It’s the coolest thing ever because it’s like they’re wearing a piece of me. To heal someone or give them a dash of confidence because of something I can put out into the world is crazy. It’s magic.”
Zarifopoulos constructed the collection almost exclusively from traditional Greek lace, reinterpreting an iconic piece of heritage in a way that evokes the draped marble statues of antiquity.
“Once I discovered the art of draping, this thing started happening, my hands took a mind of their own and everything I draped ended up looking like some ancient Greek gown,” she said. “It wasn’t my plan, it just started happening, but I realized I must be so inspired from seeing it subconsciously my whole life and it’s just coming out now.”
After months of digging through the dirt and pouring herself into her work, Zarifopoulos is finally getting the recognition she deserves.
Best New Designer and Beyond
After garnering the audience’s admiration, her debut collection was awarded “Best New Designer”.
“I was shocked. I was just so grateful to be there and talk to people who came up to me after the show, saying how much they loved it.”
Despite the rejection she experienced previously, Zarifopoulos followed her intuition and, without any expectations, took a leap of faith. Now, she’s on the precipice of something great.
“I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s going to be good wherever it is.”
