Flavia Nistor is a Romanian cultural and sculptural fashion designer whose practice translates heritage into a contemporary language through shape, material and movement. Rather than reproducing folkloric imagery, she explores ideas of verticality, transformation and the desire to rise above constraint. Her latest project, The Shape of Flight, searches for the form that conveys flight in its most essential state. Inspired by Constantin Brancusi, Flavia moves away from literal wings and feathers, focusing instead on dynamic shapes and the élan of flight. For her, flight is not a romantic escape, but an act of detachment: I detach, I rise above. Her work focuses on the moment before take-off, when the body gathers energy and prepares to move. Through engineered metal circles, natural jersey, internal structures and suspended construction, the garments hold movement within stillness. The natural jersey resists, stretches and expands into space, allowing the material itself to guide the final shape. The collection was created as an installation existing in two states: body absent, where the garments become autonomous sculptural forms, and body present, where the installation is inhabited and activated through movement. The garments extend beyond the body and into the surrounding environment, expressing verticality and the instant of élan. Working in monochrome allows shape, volume and construction to remain the main focus. Before beginning her MA in Fashion at the Royal College of Art, Flavia co-designed and manufactured a sustainability-led collection through The King’s Foundation’s Modern Artisan programme, launched globally on NET-A-PORTER. She later worked within the womenswear leather design team at Tom Ford. Her previous work has also been commissioned and presented in exhibitions supported by cultural institutions.