Fashion
Explore how Kamola Rustamova's journey from Uzbekistan to Spain transformed fashion into an act of self-expression and resistance. Learn how she fuses her Uzbek heritage with modern Western aesthetics, creating a brand that prioritizes slow fashion, sustainability, and empowering women to embrace their strength and identity through style.
Updated 11:40 am EDT, August 21, 2025
Published 11:38 am EDT, August 21, 2025
Photography: Nafisa Parpieva
Fashion Designer: Kamola Rustanova
Stylist: Fazlidin Anvarov
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to get to know another of those stories that intertwine fashion with culture, with a strong purpose, with heritage, and above all, with a lot of emotions, a story that, despite being work-related, it gets almost impossible to discern the fine line that separates it from a purely vital story.
Between fashion weeks here and there, I had the immense pleasure of speaking with Kamola Rustamova, a woman originally from Central Asia who, even long before her birth, had already designed for her an “ideal” path in accordance with tradition. The story of her life and, of course, of her brand, tells in such striking but subtle detail, every step that was taken in the destruction of that established path to reach her life today.
And, undoubtedly, if any word was repeated notably during our talk, it was resistance and all its variations. Rustamova grew up in Uzbekistan; it didn’t take her long to realize that she wanted to leave, and not precisely as an act of flight, but, on the contrary, of self-appreciation, of a search for growth.
Driven by a yearning for freedom that the country was not able to give her (please remember that only 25 years ago, it could not even be conceived that a woman from the East, and single, would travel alone, let alone move or build a career abroad), she decided to set out for Spain, breaking all kinds of molds because, as if that were not enough, she was coming to study at a fashion academy, something that even today is questioned even in the most stereotypical and well-to-do Western family.
During one of our first exchanges, Rustamova told me how her career is one of those that seem to be written in some corner of your birth certificate and, at the same time, is as inevitable as laborious to achieve.
“Who would want Uzbek fabrics with European shapes? It’s too unusual. But it was always clear to me that every culture deserves a place on the global stage. And every time I defended my ideas, it actually convinced me even more that only by being true to myself, I could create something truly valuable.”
The Sweetest Birth
In her country, when she was born, the work in fashion was reduced to the position of “costume designer,” the fashion designer per se was something unknown to that society, and yet, with that great unknown, her mother and grandmother were all the support that she needed, to know that she did not need anything else. Support that, by the way, did not come out of nowhere; Kamola had been raised in a purely creative environment, always between art, culture, and aesthetic sensibility… her will was to be expected.
she combined her studies during the day with the care of a child in the afternoons. During this process of adaptation (a time everyone who has left home at an early age knows pretty well), she encountered the collapse that made her take her first firm steps; on one hand, she knew freedom of expression as she had never done before, and on the other, she was tempted to be diluted in it, to merge so much with the West that her roots would be buried. Fortunately, it ended up being just that: a temptation she never succumbed to. And so, with no investors, no team, no space, just security, ideas, and some fabrics, “Azúkar Moreno” was born.
One afternoon, while she was taking care of the little boy named José Moreno Jin, he smiled at her, and with the characteristic sweetness of the first years of life, he called Kamola “Azúcar” and continued telling her that she was his sister, then she would be called Azúcar Moreno.
She tells me that what started as an anecdote became the nickname by which she would be referred at the academy. And almost by surprise, the play on words took on an identity, and she was in it. She adds: “Azúkar Moreno was born as a light and ironic symbol, but, little by little, it became the reflection of my philosophy: to marry the sweetness of the Orient with the audacity and elegance of the West, to intertwine tradition and modernity, and to make each garment a wearable story.”
Those first years, as usual, were a constant resistance: to fatigue, to uncertainty, to lack of resources, to the voices that tirelessly repeated to her that it was better to quit. In the meantime, she sewed the prototypes with her own hands, worked at night, did it all alone. But that resistance, she stresses, “was, and still is, my fuel.”
Slowing Down to Find a Soul
Rustamova was always very clear that in order to pay a sincere tribute to her purpose, she had to follow a very different path from the fast fashion industry. In fact, in her own words, she talks about slowing down fashion and giving it back its soul…. For some months now, a strong counter-current (fortunately) seems to be observed in the ocean of the Internet; placing value on time. Read huge books, make recipes that require 24 hours of rest, practice boredom, walk slowly, relax your shoulders, eat with the sole intention of doing it, and avoid distractions. Kamola already knew about this many years ago, even when we were not chronically online, and what if it is not the manufacturing, art, or culture industry that should take this first step?
“Every fabric I use is the fruit of weeks, sometimes months, of silent, and almost meditative work.” Later on, I asked her if she ever had the need to defend her vision from skeptical opinions and how this changed her path to this day. “There were many moments of doubt around me. At first, they didn’t understand my purpose: ‘Who would want Uzbek fabrics with European shapes? It’s too unusual.’ But it was always clear to me that every culture deserves a place on the global stage. And every time I defended my ideas, it actually convinced me even more that only by being true to myself, I could create something truly valuable.”
She talked to me about how going against the grain actually means opening new horizons, and this is all the motivation she needs. I personally felt that it was not only a need for her, but for the industry in general. The beginnings were full of sleepless nights covering with two hands and a brain what would later become 5 different jobs, but it was just this that taught her not to wait for the perfect circumstances to take action, something we all hear so often and yet only a brave few put into practice.
The Ancestral Thread
And although today everything has changed substantially, she tells me how the passion and essence are still the same as when she started and how she now works on learning to delegate, and reminds herself through acts as human as cooking for her team, that leading means knowing how to inspire and take care of those who walk beside you. Although we never managed to radically change the subject, I tried to take up the identity aspect of her project, making her roots present in her brand and managing to do them justice seemed such an interesting subject to me.
Kamola speaks of traditions as a vital flow that connects the past to the future, a flow that must be preserved with fervor if only for the sake of future generations knowing who they really are (something that seems to be fading away as globalization ceases to be a process and becomes an establishment). “My roots are not just a source of inspiration, they are my code, my universe. I was born in a land with a deep history and culture.”
Having grown up in an artistic environment, where two of her grandparents had made significant contributions to Uzbekistan’s cultural landscape, it comes as no surprise that her aesthetic sensibility was finely tuned from an early age, nor that she felt compelled to carry on their legacy. Today, as she works in fashion, she tells me she can feel how she channels the cultural codes of her origins into contemporary silhouettes, sparking a dialogue between past and present.
“I was always surrounded by beauty: fabrics, embroidery, women wearing traditional costumes with immense ease and pride. But I also felt from a very young age the urge to question: ‘What if I reinterpret it? What if I add boldness, volume, new lines, without losing the soul of these traditions?”
The arrival in Spain was a turning point in her path. She found a culture so different that it made her understand the importance of preserving one’s identity, but also the power of speaking the language of the world. It was then that she knew her roots had to sound as contemporary as they were bold and global, and that the boundaries between tradition and innovation, far from being a rupture, made a whole.
We could not miss in our conversation the very feminine character of her career, dressing women as a symbol of resistance; “For me, dressing a woman is not just about beauty or aesthetics; it’s about strength, freedom, and voice. When a woman chooses how to dress, she is doing much more than what it seems: she is declaring to the world who she is, her individuality, her fragility, or her boldness.”
Within a very unequal global landscape, where the feminine role has generally been dictated by tradition, Kamola sentences that fashion becomes an act of silent but powerful resistance. “It gives us the possibility to speak without words, to reconstruct the norms, and to create our own rules.”
She is always on a quest to design pieces in which women feel confident and free, whether in an Uzbek adras dress or a precisely cut coat. “It’s like soft armor: it protects, but never hides its essence.” Shifting the conversation to the present and looking ahead, I asked her if there was anything she was currently holding back, something she had learned that might be shaping the path she’s still on.
She answered quickly and firmly: “No.” Learning to say “no,” not only on a personal level but also in the workplace, is a particularly complicated task when you are a woman, perhaps because too much is expected of us, perhaps because we have an intrinsic eagerness to try everything until we find what we excel at (a never-ending path, by the way). Fortunately, she learned to say no to everything that does not reflect her inner universe or the philosophy of her firm.
Finding Balance in Fashion's Contradiction
In this regard, we address an unavoidable question for any artist today: how to deal with the contradiction of growing the brand while remaining loyal to it? Time, the acceleration of processes, and trends are often the protagonists of this dilemma. We talked about how easy it is to get lost among so many currents, to fall into the trap of what is falsely called current. Fortunately, she tells me that she has managed to find the balance, and, as an established thread of our conversation, the importance of listening to her inner voice, of growing the brand organically, because, as long as the philosophy and purpose remain intact, the rest is a matter of a mix of chance and causalities that we all know.
Closing our meeting, Kamola tells me how she thinks about her client, something that says it all about herself and her work; “For me, the essential thing is to create clothes for women that not only highlight their beauty but that give them strength, security and the feeling that they can do anything, a woman who carries in herself her origins and who is proud of it.”
The conversation came to an end as she told me, if she could speak to her younger self, the one just starting out, she would say: “Please, don’t be afraid of losing people, money, or time. Just be afraid of losing yourself.” And then she’d add, “Remember: the hardest days are the bridges to what you didn’t even dare to dream of.”
Lucía holds a master’s degree in communication management, specializing in fashion and luxury marketing. With a profound appreciation for art, fashion, and history, she has discovered her vocation in fashion journalism. Currently, she dedicates her efforts to this field in her early twenties, residing in the dynamic city of Madrid.
Get the latest fashion, culture, and art updates, including magazine releases release parties
Sponsored Content
