Mirabel
De Guzman

Mirabel De Guzman is a fashion designer and aspiring entrepreneur. Her love for fashion grew in gradual steps. She has loved styling since she could dress herself at the age of 4. In her elementary years she enjoyed predicting future trends, thinking of new concepts and designing. That is when it dawned on her that this could be a possible career path in the future. While attending Wilson’s School of Design, Mirabel’s goals changed as she learned more about the dark truths that lie within the fashion industry. In 2019, she became driven to go on exchange in Finland. She saw it as an opportunity to immerse herself in a place that she believed was the hub of environmental fashion design. Researching Finnish based fashion brands, she found that many have already taken significant steps to being transparent by offering an honest production process, from beginning to end, for the consumer to read. While being there, it was prominent that circular and sustainable practices were ingrained in their education system. Mirabel is passionate to learn more about environmental design and share her knowledge to help improve the damaging multi-trillion-dollar industry. Now Mirabel has set her mission/vision to be an influential figure in design that is able to re-conceptualize the production process, and re-define true economic gain.

M.a.detheLabel was founded by Mirabel De Guzman and simply stands for her first, middle and last name initials, Mirabel Academia Deguzman. It is also an interpretive name, where someone can read it as: [I]/[we] made the label, or as in “M.a.de”, the fashion label. M.a.detheLabel is a womenswear brand that aims to use innovative design concepts to maximize the wear-ability of clothing. It is Mirabel’s unique perspective for eco-conscious design. She hopes that designing garments to serve in more than one function can help decrease overall production of excess buying and increase longevity. M.a.detheLabel has been developing its debut thesis collection entitled Calmfident for A/W 2021. Calmfident is an example of multi-functional clothing. The collection was inspired by mental health awareness. It was surveyed that millennials struggle the most with anxiety disorders compared to any other generation. To tackle this, Calmfident will serve as contemporary clothing and as a potential cognitive behavioural tool. It is no secret that the pandemic has elevated feelings of anxiety globally, and with personal experience in being diagnosed with anxiety, Mirabel has found her calling to help spread awareness and allow others to understand that they are not alone. In the design development stage, Mirabel contemplated how clothing can be utilized to serve the wearer not only as an external item, but internally and personally as well. Calmfident clothing is made with the purpose to assist women in feeling more confident with how they look and feel. Aspects of anxiety that were specifically targeted were symptoms of stress-sweat, weight fluctuation, negative talk, panic attacks and anxiety attacks. Solutions developed include the utilization of distraction (tactile feature), customizable sizing, words of affirmation, and moisture-wicking ability.

Mirabel De Guzman

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Mirabel
De Guzman