Hailing from UK, Imtayaz Qassim is the luxury conceptual namesake brand based in London. Qassim’s debut collection, Silk Road, challenges opinions, combines culture and heritage and with the designer’s own aesthetic, tells a story through contemporary design.

The idea behind the title, Silk Road, is more a concept and not necessarily a physical road or route, says Qassim. Serving as a point of interaction between the different cultures, Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes that connected the West and East for centuries.

To highlight the varying influences in the AW16 collection, Qassim ties in different elements. From the inclusion of paisley, a print created by the Persians, to influences by the designer’s heritage in the form of silhouettes, Silk Road is a clever study of cross cultural references through clothes.

The range consists of oversized and elongated outerwear, hoodies and pants in cottons, jacquard nylons and hand dyed colour ways and exudes a worldly outdoor traveller aesthetic in its lookbook. At first glance, there are elements of casualness to the clothes but upon closer inspection, the point of difference emerges in their detailing.

After graduating with a BA Hon’s Degree in Fashion Design, Qassim honed his craft over the years with some of UK’s and European’s finest menswear and streetwear brands like Represent and A-Cold-Wall.

Qassim oversees every step of the production process down to patterning and sampling, which are done in house. Manufacturing is done at a London boutique garment production company and it’s great to see that the brand is as much about the operational processes as it is about its creative aesthetics.