Chopova Lowena

Chopova Lowena was founded in 2017 in London by Emma Chopova (Bulgarian-American) and Laura Lowena-Irons (British), who met as students at Central Saint Martins. The brand's foundational thesis was singular and culturally specific: build a womenswear vocabulary around Bulgarian folk-craft traditions — specifically the carabiner-fastened pleated kilt skirt, originally derived from Bulgarian Rhodope-mountain shepherd dress — refigured for contemporary London life. The Chopova Lowena vocabulary has been continuously anchored to a single defining product: the carabiner-pleated tartan-and-floral skirt, in shifting seasonal cloth combinations of plaid wool, vintage textiles, and embroidered patches. The brand has expanded into hand-knitted sweaters with Bulgarian iconography, embroidered bomber jackets, deconstructed denim, and a steady run of pieces that combine Bulgarian, English-public-school, and 1990s-skater visual references. The kilt skirt has become a genuine cultural-conversation object inside the 2020s-fashion press. The brand is independent and held by Chopova and Lowena-Irons. Chopova Lowena presents on the London Fashion Week schedule and distributes through SSENSE, MATCHES, Dover Street Market, Net-a-Porter, Lane Crawford, and a curated set of international retailers. The brand won the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund in 2023 and the LVMH Karl Lagerfeld Prize in 2024. Few brands of the post-2015 London cohort have built such a culturally specific single-product vocabulary while becoming a generational reference point.