Melbourne’s newest fashion brand - Sofia Irina - launches its first Spring and Summer debut collections to bring panache to your warmer weather wardrobe. Officially launched in September 2020, Sofia Irina is an attainable luxury fashion brand, offering contemporary sophistication with strong femininity aiming to empower women to look and feel confident, sharp and classy.

Sofia Samaras, Creative Director and Founder of eponymous, Melbourne-based fashion brand, Sofia Irina, is carving out her own niche within the fashion industry. Sofia admits it has been a long journey in the making to fulfill a lifelong dream to launch her own fashion brand.“I spent the first fifteen years of my career working in the corporate world mainly in Human Resources and then moved into a strategic business focused role managing global merger and acquisitions,” Sofia muses. “Alongside, I studied fashion design part-time to further grasp the foundations, know-how and nuances of fashion design.”

“Fortunately, my role in the corporate world has enabled me to work in global markets, and in some of the world’s largest fashion capitals. In my spare time I would spend hours walking the malls, exploring boutiques, admiring fashion and gaining inspiration from some of the world's greatest designers and fashion brands which further fueled my desire to establish my own brand.”

Growing up in a creative environment of seamstresses, the designer recalls her early teen years sketching designs in the family lounge, then being taught how to sew by her mother at the young age of fourteen. Sofia always knew that someday she would establish her own brand, acknowledging this pipe-dream project would simply come down to the right timing.

“My passion to create would grow stronger especially when I would be heading out and needed an outfit,” shares Sofia. “I would fully be able to visualize what I wanted to wear, how I would style my ensemble including the minute details of color palettes, however, finding my perfect outfit seemed to be a challenging prospect.” Finally, after much dedicated hard work, the much-anticipated brand, Sofia Irina was officially born in September 2020 gathering praise from fashion-lovers and pundits for producing high-end designs that are sophisticated, contemporary and timelessly elegant.

“I am a lover of effortless, timeless and versatile styles”

Sofia Samaras, Creative Director and Founder

Built on offering high-end fashion at an attainable level, Sofia Irina blends traditional tailoring with modern luxury accents creating garments that remain true to the core values of the brand. Beautifully tailored suiting, luxurious fabrications, romantic silhouettes all reflecting refined glamour, this Melbourne brand harmoniously fuses strong femininity and timeless take on modern, well-crafted versatile wearable wardrobe essentials that oozes with style and glamour.

Welcoming fashion into her life as a form of self expression, the designer values that how she presents herself brings to life her inner creativity. “I am a lover of effortless, timeless and versatile styles and my brand is representative of this.” Reinventing timeless, romantic, contemporary styles for women is an unparalleled experience, beams the designer as she describes the journey for her brand’s launch. “I love that my brand respects traditional and beautiful luxury fashion combined with a contemporary flair.” Describing the Sofia Irina woman as “classy, humble, clever, on the edge of sexy, self-led, and independent,” Sofia further describes the ideal customer as “a woman who enjoys city life, is ambitious and independent, and enjoys a great social setting where she can wear beautiful, glamorous and timelessly elegant outfits.”

Living in cosmopolitan Melbourne and being a staunch fan of city life, Sofia Irina, the brand is heavily influenced by the culture of the designer’s home-away-from-home, France. “The brand is very much built on French fashion aesthetics and inspiration,” shares the designer. “It is feminine yet strong and boldly expresses self confidence.”

Inspired by legendary French brands and iconic tastemakers, such as Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, the brand produces high-end designs creating a capsule collection of sophisticated and elegant wardrobe essentials. With strong women at the heart of the brand, it is no surprise that the universal trademark of working women, the blazer, is a must-have staple of the brand. “I am definitely a blazer girl,” says Sofia. “They are versatile, perfect for day and night and can be paired with endless other garments from skirts, to pants and dresses or even denim. A well tailored blazer always makes you look and feel very sharp.”

Touching on her debut collections the designer opted to focus on block colors, and minimal, but well thought out embellishment. “Block colors have always been my style mantra as they are versatile and work with other garments from your wardrobe. I love the feel of beautiful draped silhouettes that are easy to wear contrasted with structured tailoring.”

So what can we expect to see in coming Sofia Irina collections? “Above keyboard dressing is now the new norm,” quipping at our new virtual workspace reality, “so we will evolve to see some relaxed designs introduced, however, still maintaining our core design philosophies and signature offering so stay tuned.”

Starting a business is no easy task, especially in the wake of 2020, we offer much admiration to the creator of Melbourne’s newest fashion brand. “Let me point out,” begins Sofia with a serious note, “a lot of hard work and dedication goes into building a brand from the ground up. It requires long days and late nights, it is just what you have to do.” Representing the core resilience needed in this industry, the Sofia Irina story is inspiring for anyone who needs uplifting right now. “Remaining resilient especially in times like this and making smart commercial choices around the brand and marketing strategies is key,” encourages the designer; “but one thing I will say, if your passion is there, never give up. Just keep going and the results will follow. We all make plenty of slip ups, but it’s all part of the learning process so don’t be too hard on yourself. For anyone out there that has a desire to try and realize a dream, don’t ever lose sight of your goals or your passion! Your weakest points are your most defining moments of success – keep going!”