Chilean designer María Pía Cornejo´s commitment to New York and Miami

With notable experiences on international catwalks, the author is preparing to launch in the United States her new collection, Duality, where she experiments with street wear. The goal of Autumn-Winter 2022 proposal is to expand her brand and generate commercial and creative links in the northern hemisphere.

Spring is making its way to Chile and the agenda of María Pía Cornejo, moves at full speed. Within a few weeks she will settle in New York and Miami to present Duality, a line that fine tunes with urban style, a different area to the one she is used to, such as Vancouver Fashion Week 2018 and New York Fashion Week 2019.

Fashion designer with a mention in Haute Couture and studies in Buenos Aires and Milan, began her working life at Cirque du Soleil and Madonna's MDNA Tour in Chile (2012). During the last years she has been creative director of her own brand, which is characterized by its inexhaustible search for innovation, through the creation of seven collections: Zirconia (2016), Politrópolis (2017), Metallic Lights, Healing (2018), Alma (2019) and Rebirth (2020). The first was on the cover of The Dapifer magazine (New York), the second was launched in Vogue Latin America and the fourth was presented at Vancouver Fashion Week 2018, achieving outstanding recognition by Vogue UK and other specialized media. Thanks to her success in Canada, she was invited to New York Fashion Week 2019 where she unveiled Alma. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Rebirth emerged, the last part of the trilogy composed by Healing and Alma. Now it´s Duality´s turn.

Duality

According to María Pía Cornejo, this project is related to “the polarity that maintains the rhythm of life. By accepting duality, we reach equilibrium”. To propose this concept, male and female garments (dresses, coats-cape,polerons and pants) were made of cotton and wool, with a palette of dark tones (black, gray) and luminous (pink and white). The idea is to reflect existing energies in various contexts and styles.

Always preserving her imprint, a fusion of elements of architecture and geometric volumes, 3D figures that emerge from the fabrics, levels and convergent lines stand out.

Cornejo will show her creations in the showrooms of Style Hunter Milano, an Italian fashion consultancy dedicated to promoting various talents in Italy and the United States. The first stop of the journey will be the multi-award-awarded Refinery hotel, located in the Garment District, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan and in whose building the Colony Arcade operated since the early Twentieth Century, which housed many manufacturers of hats and clothing.

“I´m targeting New York and Miami, because you can reach a global and broad audience, as well as buyers around the world who are open to different visions. In addition, the historical load of the Refinery hotel is very powerful, and the neighborhood has been the epicenter of American fashion for more than a century. That's where the whole gear of the industry works. Meanwhile, in Miami Beach we will be in space 8000D, very close to Art Basel, a large complex dedicated to contemporary art”, explains María Pía Cornejo.

The itinerary also includes the exhibition of garments from previous collections of the designer such as Zirconia, Healing, Metallic Lights, Alma and Rebirth, in order to publicize its catalog to audiences made up of fashion and art lovers, artists, entrepreneurs and those who appreciate avant-garde and exclusive design.

On the other hand, Cornejo has already scheduled meetings with clients and potential business partners, as well as the realization of a mini- documentary and fashion editorials in different locations.