Dragana Solaja
Master's in Fashion Design
Year of Graduation: 2017
Current role: Consultant Designer, Embroidery, Textiles & Material Development at Fendi
Country: Bosnia & Herzegovina
Dragana Solaja is a multidisciplinary designer whose work bridges the world of fashion design, textile design, and material exploration. For her, design is a form of thinking: a constant exploration of the space where technology meets tradition and where silhouette meets its texture and materiality.
Her perspective was shaped early on by her architectural training at the Politecnico di Milano. It was here that she developed a keen eye for form, composition, and a belief that objects should tell a story. By the time she completed her Master’s in Fashion Design at Domus Academy, she had arrived at a unique philosophy: she doesn’t see garments as just “clothes,” but as built systems. To Dragana, a piece of clothing is defined by proportions, movement, and structure, and the ultimate relationship between the material and form.
Dragana Solaja is a multidisciplinary designer whose work bridges the world of fashion design, textile design, and material exploration. For her, design is a form of thinking: a constant exploration of the space where technology meets tradition and where silhouette meets its texture and materiality.
Her perspective was shaped early on by her architectural training at the Politecnico di Milano. It was here that she developed a keen eye for form, composition, and a belief that objects should tell a story. By the time she completed her Master’s in Fashion Design at Domus Academy, she had arrived at a unique philosophy: she doesn’t see garments as just “clothes,” but as built systems. To Dragana, a piece of clothing is defined by proportions, movement, and structure, and the ultimate relationship between the material and form.
Her professional experience includes collaborations with fashion houses such as Versace, Iceberg, La DoubleJ, and Fendi.
At Versus Versace, she began defining her design language within an industry context. With an architectural background, at Iceberg she easily transitioned into leather goods, where she experimented with different materials and prints. At La DoubleJ, she moved across categories, working on knitwear, accessories, and textile design. Most recently, at Fendi, she has focused on embroidery and fabric manipulation, continuing to explore decoration as a constructive element:
one that shapes the object rather than sits on its surface.
Alongside her work with fashion houses, Dragana has recently worked as a Senior Knitwear Consultant, supporting the development of knitwear collections and collaborating with brands including Blazé Milano, Momonì, and Mantero 1902. She has also collaborated with Fabrique on the Dragana Solaja x Fabrique knitwear capsule collection. Through these collaborations, she continues to explore knitwear as a space for experimentation, combining technique, material, texture, and graphic language.
She is especially drawn to knitwear, that she sees as the perfect medium to translate ideas into material form through technique. In her eyes, knitwear isn’t “made”; it is built from the inside out, where the structure emerges naturally from the material itself.
