Jelena Aleksic graduated in 2011 from the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Textile and Technology, with a master’s degree in Engineering Textiles and Fashion Design. Whilst studying she won the Best Young Designer award at Zagreb Fashion Week with her capsule womenswear collection. Furthermore, her graduation menswear collection won her the award for Best Young Designer at the Fashion Incubator Portanova competition in Croatia. Since graduating, Jelena has been designing both menswear and womenswear under her own label, JA by Jelena Aleksic, with the desire to create innovative and futuristic yet wearable clothes. JA in Croatian means ‘me’ or ‘I’. The brand aesthetic is focussed upon constructed and deconstructed design, working and playing with the asymmetry of the fragments that make up the clothes. Undelining the designs are simple shapes with minimal cuts, materials and colours.