Samuel Drira

Samuel Drira is a French fashion stylist, editor, publisher and creative consultant whose work moves between independent publishing, brand direction and runway styling. He co-founded the Paris-based biannual fashion magazine Encens with photographer Sybille Walter in 2002 and has remained one of its publishers and fashion editors. The magazine’s focus on designers, historical clothing, photography and long-form interviews established an editorial context for Drira’s interest in garments as objects with cultural memory.

In 2014 Drira joined the newly revived Nehera operation, initially as a stylist and adviser and soon publicly credited as its first creative director and artistic director. He led the label’s womenswear and accessories identity from the Spring/Summer 2015 debut Blank Canvas through Autumn/Winter 2017–18. Across four seasonal collections a year, he developed a restrained wardrobe built from tailoring, layered volumes, altered everyday garments, footwear and small accessories, working with a Bratislava-based team and regional production partners. Nehera and Drira ended their collaboration in March 2017 after developing different views of the label’s future.

Drira’s parallel styling practice includes a long relationship with Hed Mayner beginning with the label’s Autumn/Winter 2015 debut. His styling has helped define the presentation of Mayner’s enlarged tailoring, displaced proportions and physically expressive silhouettes across runway and image work. He has continued to work across independent fashion, editorial projects and consulting while maintaining Encens as a central part of his practice.

Drira approaches fashion through editing, proportion and the relationship between a garment and the body that carries it. His styling tends to leave space around clothes, allowing volume, collapse, imbalance and stance to communicate before scenery or accessory-driven effects. Familiar wardrobe pieces gain force through how they are layered, weighted and positioned.

At Nehera he worked with a limited inherited material archive and built a contemporary identity from clothing archetypes, tailoring and practical transformation. Jackets, coats, shirts and trousers were adjusted through shifted fastening, wrapping, asymmetry and layered volume, while leather, footwear and small objects extended the wardrobe. The collections used restraint as an active design tool, with construction and material decisions carrying much of the visual character.

His collaboration with Hed Mayner pushes related concerns into more extreme scale. Styling clarifies dropped shoulders, expanded backs, elongated sleeves and trousers that sit away from standard balance, using posture and layering to make the altered geometry legible. Military garments, workwear, tailoring and sportswear can remain recognisable while their relation to the body changes.

Encens provides the editorial counterpart to this practice. Its attention to vintage clothing, designer histories, photography and interviews treats fashion as a continuing field of ideas and objects. Drira’s work across publishing and styling is consequently marked by close observation, economical image-making and a preference for clothes that reveal complexity through cut, proportion and use.