Meet Evade House's Evangelina Julia, The Rising Designer on Julia Fox and Charli XCX's Radar

In the last couple of centuries, Spain has been the birthplace of some of the most influential fashion designers of our time — from Cristóbal Balenciaga to Manolo Blahnik and Mariano Fortuny. Often praised for their exquisite execution and groundbreaking silhouettes, Spanish designers have become synonymous with traditional techniques and craftsmanship. Evangelina Julia, founder and creative director of Evade House, represents a new wave of Spanish creatives in fashion, continuing the artisanal practices with an added focus on textile innovation and upcycling for the modern era.

Since graduating from London College of Fashion in 2020, the Madrid-born and based designer has been experimenting with a wide range of materials and mediums — from mud to wine stains — to create one-of-a-kind designs that push the boundaries of zero-waste wearables. After making organic fibers her bread and butter, Julia is now venturing into hosiery with a bit of help from Italian creative Laura Petrucci, by launching Cartina Lunga, a sublabel that is “not too formal, a bit cheeky, but never over the top,” accompanied by an immersive pop-up at Milan Design Week.

“I’ve always felt connected to Eva’s vision," Petrucci tells Teen Vogue. "Bringing and turning our ideas into something physical and real was super exciting. The fact that it was a hosiery collection made it even more special. Translating a concept like Erotocomatose, which is so deeply tied to femininity and sensuality, into a fashion accessory felt incredibly powerful. It felt like two friends sending tons of messages every day, sharing the things and ideas we loved.”

To know more about the creative symbiosis of Cartina Lunga and the vision behind Evade House as a whole, Teen Vogue caught up with Evangelina Julia over Zoom about her journey since setting up the brand in 2021, textile innovation, her penchant for repurposing waste, and catching the attention of the likes of Caroline Polachek, Julia Fox, Charli XCX, and more.

Teen Vogue: When did your interest in fashion start? When did you realize it was something you could pursue professionally?

Evangelina Julia: It wasn’t really until I started modeling and I, honestly, never liked the clothes they put me in. But, through that job, I started learning about the behind-the-scenes of the fashion world and just how wasteful it was, starting from the sets and the props. It was really shocking. I had never been involved in fashion — I studied biology —so I never really truly stopped to think what was going on, but that was the moment where I was like, “Wow, I can’t believe all this stuff is just thrown away.” I was always trying to fish out things to give them a second life.

That was the moment when I decided I wanted to study fashion and be an active participant. I just refused to believe brands and clients weren’t aware of the contamination behind the making of a shirt or a mere shoot, so at 24, I enrolled in fashion school.

TV: Wait, so you studied biology before you started in fashion and started modeling?

EJ: Yes, I come from a family of doctors. Nobody is in fashion, so there was this unspoken rule of the family tradition. So, yes, I started studying biology, then switched to social sciences, and ultimately, marketing. I initially pursued a degree in marketing before switching to fashion. During the last year of my marketing degree, which I did not finish, it became clearer that I wanted to move to London to study fashion at LCF. I graduated not long ago — in 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

TV: What did you study at London College of Fashion?

EJ: I did a BA in Fashion Design and Development.

TV: What was the biggest lesson you learned there? As a fellow alum, I know that sustainability is key at LCF. What’s your biggest takeaway from your time there?

EJ: Honestly, my biggest takeaway is the techniques I learned, because I am now also teaching at universities here in Madrid. They taught me Shingo Sato’s zero-waste method and Julian Roberts’s subtraction cutting, which are not that well-known. What really stuck with me was the notion of not having to create a piece from scratch, not just sticking to patterns, but reversing that process and being able to create from existing clothes.

We did a lot of moulage and draping, which creates a sort of 360 creativity, where you are not bound by the restraints of illustration, but rather create with your hands directly on the mannequin, with the freedom that paper cannot provide. You can create puffs and shapes that go beyond the body.

TV: Do you still work like that to this day?

EJ: Yes, draping one of the pillars of the brand and working with pieces that have already had a life. We often work with pieces I find while traveling. We put them on the mannequin and rework them with a few stitches, or remove the lining and let it hang to sew it anew. We can edit and mold these key pieces to inform the essence of what we later produce. The key is then communicating with the client, your friends, or your community.

TV: When did you start toying with the idea of setting up your own brand?

EJ: Towards the end of my BA, but it was a little implicit while I was studying. Obviously, each student makes their own decision, but it’s ultimately going to work for a brand or starting your brand. I didn’t want to waste all the research I had worked on thus far; it was like a baby, a part of you. So it came down to do I want to give all this research and creativity away, or do I want to keep going? It didn’t make sense to me to just hand it over to another person or another brand, so I decided to start my own and keep sustainability at its core to teach clients and ourselves as we go along, and keep researching.

TV: You use “we” a lot.

EJ: It’s impossible to build a brand without other people. I started on my own, then there were two of us. I don’t want hierarchy in my team. We are all on the same level. I can teach you, and you can teach me. And, at the end of the day, if there’s no team, there’s no brand. Without a team, we’d have no identity, and we wouldn’t be able to take on any projects. It’s fundamental. And I also want to add that the team loves the brand. We truly reclaim the idea of working with friends and creating a community, collaborating alongside people we admire and who share the same ideas and vision.

TV: I was looking at the Cartina Lunga brand book, and it reads: “We don’t believe in creating distance from our audience — we are our audience.” I think this is key in our overly consumerist world. Doing something because you personally enjoy it and whatever comes next is a blessing, but not the reason why you start something.

EJ: Right? It’s something I always tell my students — if you want to make money, don’t start your own brand because it’s the opposite. I mean, there are obviously different paths. There’s the e-commerce way, runway-focused, pop-ups… It’s its own world. There are a million business plans depending on your ultimate goal.

In my case, I just wanted to keep exploring and sharing what I’m going through and experiencing. I love doing runway shoes for this reason, it’s like a little movie, your own world. Our biggest challenge is actually the e-commerce side — the website, transforming the pieces so they are a bit more wearable. My mom sometimes irons my clothes, and she’s like, “I don’t understand how one would even wear this.” I think those are our strongest and weakest points.

TV: How did you end up teaching?

EJ: Without really setting out to. I never ever considered it. However, there is not really a formal education available at a basic level in clothmaking. We are never really even told how cotton becomes the cotton we get as consumers. Nobody knows anything. Most people don’t know silk comes from worms. I just wanted to take a moment to dismantle that and inform people about the items that we are ultimately being forced to wear by society. I wanted to do that through my own research, documenting how we put on our shows and the materials we use, rather than teaching in an institutional setting. But since collating all that, some universities came knocking on our door, asking me if I wanted to give some lessons. I had never considered it, but it felt natural.

TV: Why is the brand called Evade House? How did you land on that name?

EJ: It’s a funny story. I was living in a warehouse in London, and there were 10 of us. I used to lock myself up in my room to work on my stuff so my roommates didn’t really know if I was home or not. One day, my roommate Jaime was like, “It feels like you are always evading us.” That stuck with me because I’m Eva, so I was like, “Hey, it contains my name.”

And then it just so happened that my best friend was called Jade, and she wanted to begin the project with me after her gap year, so Evade was Eva and Jade. Then I added the House after moving back to Spain because of copyright issues. Someone had already claimed Evade. We were stuck between Evade Atelier, Evade Studio, and ultimately went for Evade House to evoke that sense of community and the fact that pieces can come to us.

TV: So, is Jade part of the brand?

EJ: No! She’s still one of my best friends, but she’s a filmmaker now.

TV: Well, you never know when there’ll be a chance to collaborate!

TV: What stood out to me when I first learned of your brand is the defined aesthetic rooted in dichotomy. It’s a little medieval, a little Victorian, sexy but innocent at the same time — all while feeling really organic and raw. How did you land on this aesthetic? What inspired you?

EJ: I fear I have to say this again, but we are our own audiences. My style has always been a bit “messy.” I like distressed things, stained things, but also have this baby face and look very innocent. I think we’ve landed here without really setting out too. If I gravitate towards this aesthetic, then of course my visual research will too. How am I going to style the pieces? Well, how I’d wear them. The brand’s identity is my identity, but exaggerated.

TV: All of the pieces are handmade in your studio in Madrid, right?

EJ: Yes. We make everything here, in Usera, and we are here every day. We sew everything here, but we are scaling up quickly, so we are also working with a small manufacturer that’s literally a 15-minute drive away. They produce 10-piece runs for us. It’s still within the same neighborhood, and we try to make it as sustainable as possible. They produce one skirt and two shirts for us, allowing us to focus on more bespoke projects for weddings and similar events.

TV: Is that the average run for each piece?

EJ: For production, yes. We offer a variety of formats on our site. We create one-of-a-kind pieces, which are either made for the runway or reworked studio pieces, such as a vintage dress transformed into a multi-layered skirt. That would be a one-of-a-kind piece. Or, if we create something with a highly intricate construction that we know would be costly to replicate, or featuring a Japanese mud cloth, which is also not readily available and takes six months to produce, then that would be a one-off. Crocheted and felt pieces as well. The material is handmade, so each one will be different. We make them once, take a picture, and try to find them a home.

The second option would be made to order, and the third one is sample sales, where we sell all the pieces and the prototypes we experiment with. We also want those to be worn, and we sell them at a lower price. We always want to either sell or donate everything we make after we document it. We don’t want to have any stock.

TV: You get really experimental with your materials. I saw you’ve worked with everything from recycled yute coffee bags and mud to silk chiffon, seaweed, and seacell. Where do you source your fabrics?

EJ: It’s often just existing materials that we wash and treat to be more pliable and not so rugged and raw. For knitting and crochet, we use hemp from Nepal, which I found through a friend who was doing research there. It’s produced by a local community in the Himalayas. We always want to put communities first.

Additionally, we felt that the raw element really worked with the brand's ethos. In all our material research and exploration of new technologies, we gravitate towards materiality and roughness, so that people with visual impairments can also feel the clothes. We believe it makes accessibility easier and more direct. Additionally, our tags, the hanging ones, are also in braille.

The rest of the materials, like cotton, calico, etc, we always source locally. When we were still in London, it was located at Cloth House, which was then in Soho and has since moved to Camden. It’s a small, family-run store that only sells natural materials, often sourced from Japan and India. The rolls are all handmade. This is where I sourced my mud cloth and Mikkusu fabric, which is a recycled cotton and linen blend from Japan, dyed with charcoal. You just can’t mass-produce with these materials because they are simply not mass-produced.

I wanted to maintain that approach after moving the brand to Madrid, and it was a challenge, which was initially shocking. Aside from cotton, finding natural and organic materials is hard here. However, two months ago, I attended a fair in San Martin and discovered a couple of small companies, primarily from Barcelona, that specialize in linens, silks, and recycled fabrics. Thankfully, regulations are forcing them to also source more ethically and consciously. On the knit front, we also met with the girls from PYRATEX and have been working with them. It’s been hard, but we are finding our footing.

TV: You are still a relatively young brand, but you already have a handful of celebrity cosigns — Caroline Polachek, Nathy Peluso, Charli XCX, Julia Fox… How do these opportunities come about, and how does it feel to see your creations suddenly on stage at the Grammys?

EJ: We never even imagined it. When we work on something, we never do it with the intention of reaching celebrities or anyone in that world. However, at the end of the day, they are people like you and me, and they can find things organically. I think treating it as a natural process and considering the design process as the most essential aspect is key. My main focus is on the discussions we have with our team while we create, research, and then see it materialize into a tangible thing. I want people to feel that energy, like it’s palpable in the fibers somehow.

It’s hard to believe, even for me, that the pieces we create reach celebs. I’m like, “How did they find us?” But, for example, the Grammys thing, we didn’t even know. I think Julia Fox or her stylist just bought one of the pieces. There’s no tracking for a loan or emails with stylists, which I like even more because I feel like acquiring it first hand actually shows even more appreciation for the pieces.

For Caroline Polachek, it was different. I met her stylist, Tati Cotliar, because she worked on a Vogue editorial where they wanted to use Spanish designers only, and she was like, “I work with an artist who is literally your twin.” So, she showed her the brand, thinking she’d love it, and lo and behold. Slowly but surely, we’ve reached that clientele, but it was never our intention.

TV: Wait, so Julia Fox just wore the shirt to the Grammys to perform with Charli without you knowing?

EJ: Yes, we still have no idea. It’s an unfinished story. Not even Sherlock Holmes could crack it.

TV: What about the “360” music video?

EJ: That’s different. The stylist reached out for our wine top, which we cure with salt and all. We were sending emails back and forth, but we were short on time, so then they asked if they could recreate their own wine top. It's not our actual top. Charli XCX ends up spilling the wine on the tank top herself and creating her own. We have been pouring wine on our tanks in our social media and marketing for three years. I love that performative element.

TV: Let’s talk about Cartina Lunga. It’s a hosiery-focused sublabel of Evade House. How did the idea come about?

EJ: I’m going to say it was a very organic process again. I love Tabis and FiveFingers, and there were just no socks for them on the market. Did you know that black socks are one of the most profitable products for brands? I was shocked.

So, anyway, we started ruminating on how we could transform such a fast fashion product while specifically filling that gap for Tabis and FiveFingers. Socks and tights are mass-produced with LYCRA and synthetic materials, which people often use and then discard, and we know where that trash ultimately ends up. We picked up some existing LYCRA tights and added crochet to create this striking contrast.

It’s all about rethinking how we see these pieces. Something people just throw away, you add five hours of crochet, and it becomes more valuable; you are going to take better care of it. When it breaks, you are unlikely to throw it away, but rather mend it, perhaps with a different color thread to give it more character and bring it back to its original hole. As a Vibram wearer, I just refused to get my socks from Amazon. I want them to be cute if I wear a dress, so we filled that gap ourselves.

TV: So it’s again already existing materials?

EJ: Yes, we mainly get them all from two small notions in Usera and Callao. It’s all deadstock product that they have had for years. They have really old hosiery that they don’t want to sell because they might rip when you take them out of the package, so we take them. I was a little skeptical at first because I don’t know where these products were made, but they haven’t sold them in years.

TV: At the end of the day, waste will be waste if you don’t give it a second life.

EJ: Exactly, and I hate that misconception bout sustainability. For starters, it’s impossible to work in fashion and be fully sustainable. If you genuinely want to be 100% sustainable, consider quitting your job and devoting yourself to helping others.

TV: What’s the stock situation like?

EJ: We’ve got very few — only five of each in the studio.

TV: How did you meet Laura Petrucci (a.k.a. erotocomatose) and why did you decide to start this project together?

EJ: I was already in love with her work as an art director. We would print out her pictures for our mood boards. Every time we were working on a mood board, I’d end up on her page. We would be messaging her all the time to get permission to use her stuff to build the Cartina Lunga page, so I talked to my team and was like , “Why don’t we reach out to Laura for this?” We didn’t know each other. We were internet friends for a year and then met for the first time at Paris Fashion Week. We’ve been working remotely on the project together for pretty much that whole time, and the synergy has been great.

It’s mainly been moodboard work, but now that we have this limited stock, we wanted to present them physically, and thanks to the Mayrit Biennale here in Madrid, and Laura in Milan, we got the chance with the Milan Design Week pop-up. We worked with Cinema Parentesi and Ortica Studio to do an interdisciplinary blend merging performance into the pop-up to showcase a product that’s intrinsically really hard to showcase. There’s only really orthopedic hangers and legs, but we wanted to feel more story-driven and akin to the brand. We have actors intermixing with fair attendees to show the hosiery. Laura also made a sonic installation with her partner.

TV: What’s next for both Evade House and Cartina Lunga?

EJ: I am going to generalize because they go together now, but we are really interested in making clothes more adaptable and long-lasting. I call it trend-free. We want to make clothes that everyone can wear and feel timeless and can also have multiple uses once bought. We revisit our patterns a lot, because we dont want to crate new ones, so we want to explore adapting existing things even more. We have only been working for four-ish years, so there’s still a lot to investigate about that adaptation and how pieces transform with time.

TV: So we are not just talking about a second life but a third and a fourth?

EJ: Exactly. I am already thinking about the tights breaking and being able to fix them in-house to keep the cycle going beyond just one upcycle. We work extensively with natural dyes, mud, and these are ultimately microorganisms at the end of the day. Even our distress is often caused by burying the pieces in soil. If you leave the clothes underground for too long, they will disappear. Working with organic materials, I approach the process with the mindset that my clothes will eventually decompose and return to the earth. However, the LYCRA used for Cartina lunga is different, so I’m considering how these socks can be kept functional and what products we can create from any eventual sock scraps. How can we flip the upcycling again?

TV: It’s funny because everything has been “organic,” and now your worry is about also making the inorganic endure.

EJ: That’s the goal, making the inorganic as close to organic as possible.

Evangelina Julia spoke in Spanish for this interview. Her quotes have been translated and adapted into English by the writer.