Piotrek Panszczyk

Piotrek Panszczyk is a Polish-born fashion designer and co-founder of Area. Raised in Arnhem in the Netherlands, he studied at ArtEZ and worked in Paris for houses including Chloé and Emanuel Ungaro before entering Parsons’ Fashion Design and Society MFA programme in New York. His collaboration with Beckett Fogg began through textile experiments and a shared interest in the friction between polished glamour, altered surfaces and downtown dressing.

The pair formally launched Area in 2014, with Panszczyk becoming the principal author of its seasonal collections and later its creative director. He developed a vocabulary of crystal cup chain, lamé, sculptural metalwork, coated denim, exaggerated tailoring and body-conscious jersey, often beginning with a single image or material and extending it through every possible scale. His runway work helped move Area from an experimental studio into a recognised New York label, while the 2021 couture-format launch created a separate space for one-off construction and extensive handwork.

Panszczyk’s final collection for Area was the tenth-anniversary Fall 2024 show, presented in September 2024. He left the company in February 2025 after approximately a decade of creative leadership. His founder-era contribution established the house’s central relationship between nightlife, fantasy, textile engineering and commercial product, providing the codes inherited by his successor Nicholas Aburn.

Panszczyk designs through accumulation and transformation. A thumbprint, eye, bone or hand can become print, hardware, cut-out, embroidery and silhouette within the same collection, while historical references are disclosed and recombined rather than disguised as invention. His strongest garments offset the density of research with direct physical effects: a swinging crystal chain, a rigid denim bow, an impossible shoulder or a dress cut away to reveal the body.

He treats glamour as a language open to humour, excess and technical risk. Couture references from Grès, Ungaro, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga sit beside club culture, popular graphics and industrial processes, with inclusive casting resisting the narrow social codes historically attached to high craft. The result is fashion that can function as performance, celebrity image and product without resolving the contradictions between those uses.