Rosemarie Abela began her fashion designer journey studying for a fashion degree at Polimoda Fashion School in Florence, Italy. Her first collection was not only shown at the prestigious Pitti Filati but it was sponsored by one of Italy’s leading knitwear manufacturers. She graduated in 2014, closing a fruitful learning experience with a well-received menswear collection. 

In June 2014, Abela moved back to Malta for good and opened a small studio while working as a junior in-house designer with the Bortex Group. In the same year, she also took part in her first-ever Malta Fashion Week and won the award for the best upcoming designer. She represented Malta at Serbia Fashion Week three years later with her acclaimed collection ‘La Cupola’.

Greatest achievement

Rosemarie Abela is grateful to have had the opportunity to start her own business, which has gone from strength to strength since she opened her studio in 2014. In 2019, she made the leap from working part-time to full-time and has not looked back. For her, being the director of her brand is a pleasure and an enormous privilege.

Favourite part of being the director

Always a leader at heart, Abela’s favourite part of being a director is controlling the various aspects of her business and passionately monitoring the inner workings of her studio. Abela gathers a lot of inspiration from meeting other designers and directors, which motivates her to strive towards her goals and help her company evolve even further. 

What she hopes to achieve in the near future 

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fashion industry has been a notable one that has led fashion houses to go back to their grassroots and rethink a number of their business aspects – Rosemarie Abela is no different. The studio is providing more services than ever before by increasing the number of ready-to-wear Holy Communion, and wedding dresses made and expanding the ready-to-wear accessory range. 

Words to live by 

“Give, even if you have only a little” – Buddha