From Finance to Fashion: Hind Ezzahiri and the Story Behind Her Hempel Award

A Different Path into Fashion

Hind Ezzahiri's journey into fashion did not begin in a traditional fashion school. She first studied finance, completing a Bachelor's degree between 2009 and 2014. Her academic background gave her a structured approach to problem-solving, analysis, and precision. 

Her passion for fashion eventually led her to pursue a new direction. She joined LaSalle College in Casablanca, where she developed her skills in fashion design and garment creation. Her experience at LaSalle became an important step in transforming her creative ideas into tangible silhouettes and collections. 

This combination of analytical thinking and creative exploration would later become an important part of her approach to fashion: imagining a concept, understanding its structure, and then translating it into a physical garment.

The Hempel Award: A Platform for Young Fashion Designers

In 2019, Hind took part in the Hempel Award China International Young Fashion Designers Contest, an international fashion design competition associated with China Fashion Week. The competition brought together emerging designers from different countries and gave young talents an opportunity to present their creative visions on an international stage.

The 2019 competition was presented as the 27th edition of the contest, with “Wild-Life” as its theme. The event was organized by the China Fashion Association and Hempel International Group and took place in Beijing as part of China Fashion Week.

For Hind, the competition was not simply an opportunity to create beautiful garments. It became a space to explore an unusual question: what might fashion look like if we imagined a world that no longer exists?

VOLIZARKANO: Imagining Fashion Five Million Years from Now

Hind's collection was titled VOLIZARKANO. According to her original competition submission, the concept was inspired by an imagined future five million years from now.

In this future, a new species of lizard survives in the Mediterranean basin, which has become a vast saline expanse surrounded by rocky mountains. Humanity has disappeared, leaving behind a completely transformed landscape. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

Rather than drawing inspiration from something familiar or immediately visible, Hind chose to imagine something that humanity would never have the opportunity to see.

“My philosophy then is to take inspiration from what we will not have the opportunity to see.”

This idea became the conceptual foundation of VOLIZARKANO: a fashion universe shaped by the relationship between an imagined creature, volcanic landscapes, geological forms, and a distant future.

When Nature Becomes a Silhouette

The concept of VOLIZARKANO brought together several visual references. The lizard became one of the central inspirations, while the volcano provided another important source of form and texture.

Hind described the mountain and the ridges of the earth as elements that could be translated into fashion. Instead of reproducing nature literally, she explored how these references could influence the shape, structure, volume, and surface of a garment.

This approach reflects one of the fundamental principles of fashion design: inspiration does not have to appear directly on the garment. It can be transformed into proportion, construction, texture, movement, or silhouette.

From Lizard Skin to Volcanic Rock

Materials played an essential role in bringing the concept to life. Hind's original submission identifies several materials and techniques used to communicate the collection's imaginary environment. 

Leather: The Skin of the Lizard

Leather was selected as a reference to the skin of the lizard. Its surface and structure helped connect the garments to the imagined creature that inspired the collection.

Plastic: An Unexpected Surface

Plastic was incorporated using an umbrella-inspired technique. This allowed an industrial and unconventional material to become part of the collection's visual language.

Burned Wool: The Memory of the Volcano

Rows of wool were burned in selected areas to evoke the appearance and destructive energy associated with a volcano. The material itself became part of the storytelling, transforming texture into a visual representation of the collection's volcanic inspiration.

Through these choices, the materials were not simply decorative. Each one contributed to the narrative of the collection and helped transform an abstract idea into something physical.

Four Looks, One Imaginary World

The competition submission described four women's suits for the VOLIZARKANO collection. 

Each look formed part of the same imagined universe. Rather than treating the garments as isolated pieces, the collection was conceived as a visual exploration of a future landscape where natural forms, unusual materials, and the human silhouette could interact.

This collection approach is particularly important in fashion design. A successful collection is not only a series of individual garments; it can also function as a visual language in which silhouettes, materials, colors, textures, and construction techniques communicate the same central idea.

From Concept to Garment

Behind every fashion collection is a process of translation. A designer begins with an idea, an image, a feeling, or a story. That concept must then become a silhouette that can exist in three dimensions.

This is where patternmaking becomes essential.

A garment can be inspired by a mountain, a lizard, a volcanic landscape, or an imagined future, but the final design still needs to respect proportions, construction, balance, movement, and fit.

Patternmaking creates the bridge between creative vision and physical reality. It transforms a two-dimensional idea into pieces that can be cut, assembled, fitted, adjusted, and ultimately worn.

This relationship between imagination and technical construction would later become particularly meaningful in Hind's approach to fashion and, eventually, in the philosophy behind ClicPattern.

A Moment in Beijing

In March 2019, the Hempel Award contest took place in Beijing as part of China Fashion Week. The event brought together young designers from different countries and placed emerging creative talent within an international fashion context.

For Hind, presenting VOLIZARKANO in this environment represented more than the presentation of four garments. It was the opportunity to bring a highly personal creative concept into an international competition and communicate a fashion story through silhouette, material, and construction.

Her participation resulted in the Hempel Excellent Award, an important milestone in her early fashion career.

More Than an Award

Awards are often remembered through their final result: a name, a trophy, or a title. But behind a fashion award lies a much longer creative process.

In Hind's case, that process began with a question about the distant future and developed into a complete imaginary world. The idea was then translated into silhouettes, materials, techniques, and four women's looks.

The story of VOLIZARKANO is therefore also a story about experimentation. It shows how fashion can become a medium for imagining places, creatures, landscapes, and futures that do not yet exist.

The Beginning of a Patternmaking Philosophy

Looking back at this collection, one idea becomes particularly relevant to ClicPattern: a garment begins long before the sewing machine.

It begins with an idea.

It develops through research, inspiration, proportion, construction, and patternmaking. Only then does it become fabric, thread, and finally a garment.

This philosophy is at the heart of ClicPattern. Every sewing pattern is designed to transform a creative idea into something that makers can actually create with their own hands.

From the Runway to Your Sewing Table

The world of professional fashion design can sometimes feel distant from the home sewing community. ClicPattern was created to help make that world more accessible.

Professional patternmaking principles can be translated into digital sewing patterns that allow makers to explore contemporary silhouettes, develop their sewing skills, and create garments with their own personal interpretation.

The journey from a fashion competition in Beijing to a downloadable sewing pattern may seem very different, but the creative foundation is the same: an idea, a pattern, a piece of fabric, and the desire to create something unique.

The Story Behind ClicPattern

Hind's journey—from finance to fashion design, from LaSalle College to an international fashion competition, and from conceptual collections to professional patternmaking—continues to influence the way ClicPattern approaches sewing patterns.

ClicPattern is built around the belief that a sewing pattern is more than a technical PDF. It is the starting point of a creative process.

It is where an idea takes shape.

Where fabric becomes possibility.

And where every maker can reinterpret a design and make it their own.