July 31, 2025 |
There’s a quiet kind of defiance at the heart of Aurembiaix, the Barcelona-based label that’s rewriting the rules of romanticism one piece of deadstock fabric at a time. Designed by Flor Violeta Sobrequés and Chloe Campbell – two self-taught minds with hands that move a little more like historians than fashion designers – the brand began as a simple suggestion: “shall we just try something?” And try something, they’ve done indeed.
The name itself is a portal: Aurembiaix, a medieval Catalan countess resurrected from Violeta Sobrequés’s childhood memory, after her father, a historian, once mentioned her. There was no branding brainstorm, no glossy pitch deck, just a moment of recognition, the kind that makes your skin prickle just a bit. “It wasn’t a central concept,” they say, “but it felt like it belonged.” That belonging extended itself when they realised the poetic double entendre: ‘aurem’ – Latin for ‘gold’ – and ‘biaix’ – ‘cut on the bias’ in Catalan.
The duo met through Campbell’s partner who went to school with Violeta Sobrequés, but their creative chemistry was more lightning bolt than slow burn. When Campbell inherited boxes of antique fabrics from a great-aunt, she instinctively turned to Violeta Sobrequés, whose style she had long admired from afar. What began as a casual kitchen-table kind of project – just a few one-off pieces made at home – spiralled into something more permanent and magnetic. “The connection was immediate,” they explain, “we began meeting more often, and without really planning it, we made a collection.”
Collection 4
Their path to design is beautifully haphazard. Neither studied fashion at university; Campbell was dissuaded by the drawing-heavy application process, while Violeta Sobrequés tried and wasn’t accepted. Still, they somehow found their way to the same technical pattern-cutting course, years apart. Their backgrounds – photography and performance – fold seamlessly into their process which finds its footing in evocative storytelling rooted in emotion and personal experiences.
Unlike the rigid schedules of traditional houses, Aurembiaix operates like an ongoing conversation. Ideas bloom from scraps: a fabric, a gesture, a sentence between sips of wine. A piece might be sewn first and patterned later, passed through rounds of fitting, deconstructed and resurrected. It’s fashion as alchemy; a little chaotic and a lot innovative. “Sometimes it feels like the blind leading the blind,” they laugh. “We never really know what to expect.”
Their studio is as much an atelier as it is a memory box. Deadstock fabrics guide their hands, not trend forecasts. It’s an ethic that grew organically, out of necessity, but now underpins their entire rhythm which boasts limited quantities, thoughtful silhouettes and zero waste. Pieces are made-to-order, so as to not overproduce, and they remain in circulation, ready to be bought by fans of the brand, long after the runway lights go down. “There’s something reassuring about that continuity,” they say, “about letting a design live longer than just one moment. What we’re most interested in at the moment is this idea of permanence, of building a lasting connection between the clothes and the people who wear them.”
This reverence for slowness shines through in Collection 4 which debuted in June as a love letter to friendship and the things we carry from youth into adulthood. “We were questioning why we were making even more clothes again,” they admit. “And we thought maybe there was more meaning if they were made for the people we love.” What emerged was a series of pieces steeped in shared closets, long nights and the kind of platonic devotion rarely explored in fashion. Dresses bloomed with volume, crafted from swathes of stiff tulle or what looks like shimmering sequin-coated spandex, while touches of tailoring came through in boxy suiting and overcoats; all of it a touch coquettish and a bit Sophia Coppola-coded. Writer and friend of the design duo Mariona Valdés penned the collection’s accompanying text – a piece that, the designers insist, “holds the feeling better than we could ever explain.”
At Aurembiaix, influences are rarely linear. One dress, worn by Campbell’s sister in the first collection, was nicknamed ‘la niña de day’, a phrase that means nothing in Spanish, but everything to them. They speak often of this imagined figure they’re dressing: an eternal presence, feminine but undefined. She flits in and out of their work like a muse in the mist. Think a girl waiting outside a prom in a trench coat, Madeleine Vionnet’s 1930s bias cuts, or a long dress collapsing onto bare feet.
Collection 3
Aurembiaix is romance without rigidity: a 19th-century silhouette might be sliced in jersey; a historical trim layered with sneakers. “That tension keeps it from feeling like a costume,” they explain. The results are pieces that feel lived-in, as though you’ve worn them before in a dream – or a past life. They’re not interested in designing for one archetype either. “Our designs are for everyone,” they insist. And it rings true. Collection 4 featured pregnant and plus-sized models of all ages. There’s nothing exclusionary about their work, even in its complexity. Theirs is fashion with heart, not ego.
Being based in Barcelona gives them permission to pause. The city’s slow pulse matches their methodical pace, and its flea markets and local artisans are integral to their process. Everything happens close to home, with collaborators who’ve become like family. And really, that’s what this label is about: closeness. Between friends, between garment and wearer, between past and present.
So what’s next for Aurembiaix? “Right now, we’re not in a hurry,” they say simply. Collections evolve gently, with designs lingering from season to season, shape-shifting only when the right fabric finds them again. In an industry addicted to speed and spectacle, Aurembiaix is a quiet revolution.
Photography courtesy of Aurembiaix.
Aurembiaix co-founders and creative directors Flor Violeta Sobrequés and Chloe Campbell
