A conversation with Florentina Leitner, fashion feels like a dream still unfolding. In You Are a Star, the Antwerp-based designer turns cinema, childhood fantasies, and glittering ambition into a playful universe where everyone gets their moment in the spotlight.
Backstage at Florentina Leitner’s Fall-Winter 2026 show during Paris Fashion Week, fittingly titled You Are a Star, felt like stepping behind the curtain of a playful, dreamlike pageant. Our photographer Justine Loffredo captured backstage in an exclusive series as Leitner’s cast of stars prepared to take their place in the spotlight.
Fresh from presenting her Fall-Winter 2026 collection You Are a Star during Paris Fashion Week, we caught up with Austrian designer Florentina Leitner to talk about the ideas shaping her growing fashion universe. Based in Antwerp, Leitner launched her eponymous label in 2021 after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and working on the womenswear team at Dries Van Noten. Since then, Florentina continues to build a colorful whimsical yet thoughtful world through fashion.
Your Fall Winter 2026/27 is about dreams. What was your dream growing up and did you always dream about becoming a fashion designer?
My first dream was to become a movie director. I was always fascinated by cinema. When I was younger often my dad went with me to the Vienna film Festival “Viennale”, we watched lots of international lesser known movies which I really enjoyed. Through film I also discovered fashion, I thought also about becoming a costume designer at a point and one of my dreams would still be at one point to create the costumes for a film. Like Gaultier did for one of my favourite movies, “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover”.
I saw that film at such a young age and it completely went over my head except for the costumes that left a strong impact on me too! Why is having a dream important to you?
When I wouldn’t be able to dream I would not be able to create, to drive in live and have things to look forward to. When I was a teenager it was a boyfriend, graduating in fashion high school, moving to Antwerp, studying Fashion at the Royal Academy,… I think if I would not have my dreams I would not be where I am now. It is sometimes not easy to reach your dreams, to convince the people around you and push for what you love and want to do in live also when news/people around you tell you that its not making sense. I remember when people looked “strange” at me when I told them I study fashion and questioning if this is a “stable real” job, after I moved to do my BA and MA in Antwerp I was still not sure if this is the field which gives me a stable job or income and lots of my classmates did not finish their studies and do something completely else now. But I did not really give up on the dream of “Fashion”. When I graduated and worked at Dries van Noten I got another reality check but in a good way, it showed me you need a team and when I started then my own brand I thought it was beautiful to meet my “team” and work on a common dream together. Fashion and showing at Paris is and was a dream now for a long time already and I want to only dream bigger and reach more goals (for the stars).
Before launching your label, you mentioned working with Dries Van Noten. What lessons from that experience still guide the way you design today?
I learned more about a fashion company structure, for example that you cannot just start cutting fabric and start draping, but that you also need to stay organized, note down the meters of fabric you used, try to think resourceful but also make something creative and special. I loved the team meetings and see what everyone was coming up with idea wise for the new collection. It is definitely a team job having a Fashion brand and not a one person job.
Launching an independent brand today is notoriously difficult. What has been the biggest challenge in the past four years?
There is always new challenges coming up but honestly all struggling moments make my job also why I love it. Its finding solutions on a daily basis, fabrics not arriving or running out of stock (we work with deadstock material often so sometimes it gets tricky for production), finding venues for shows, organizing Fashion Week,…. It’s a lot to do but I enjoy it a lot!
Your collections often feel playful but also technically precise. What’s the most technically challenging piece you’ve created in your FW26 collection?
For FW26 I think the most “technical” look is Look nr 3. Specially the coat, shows tailoring but also the “Florentina Leitner” playful side with the price bow detail.
When I visited your showroom, you had a fun installation inspired by the slumber party scene in the Princess Diaries. What cultural references are you constantly returning to?
Youth culture, things I used to like or things I newly discovered.
Who is the “Florentina Leitner girl” in your mind?
It slightly changes per season, SS26 she was a more sexy beach girly which likes skateboarding and spring break parties. This season she is a dreamy, sleepy, edgy, princess with undone hair and a goal to reach for her dreams/ stars.
Let’s dream a little, if you could dress any woman, real or fictional, in Florentina Leitner, who would it be and why?
I would love to dress Chloë Sevigny she played in lots of movies which inspired me like in Gummo, which was one of the inspirations for my SS26 collection.
Chloë is always on my visionboard and Gummo feels like a collection of dream sequences. Dreaming aside, your pieces are made across Europe, why is that important for you?
I think at this stage I want to work with EU production also because I have the overview better then. Shipping in less of a nightmare and also the quality and “made in Italy” or EU stamp is still highly appreciated to our clients.
Let’s have a little fun, what’s something about you that people wouldn’t expect from looking at your clothes?
I do think I reflect my clothes with my personality and the way I dress myself. But maybe they wouldn’t know that I am a fan of going to theme parks, like Disneyland or the Prater in Vienna, but I do think people could have guessed that already.
Do you have a go-to karaoke song and what is it?
I actually just did “Uber-Karaoke” in Paris this fashion week after my show! It was so much fun, our Uber driver came with his teal which then let us choose songs to karaoke sing, best ride ever 5 star driver! And for the moment my go to Karaoke song is “ Live your Life” from Rihanna and T.I., it was my Fashion Week jam this season.
If you could leave in any decade, place and era, when and where would it be?
I enjoy the now, I think it’s important to stay in the moment.
Finally, the world is facing so many uncertainties, fashion aside, what is your dream for the world today?
I hope that we manage to stop all the wars and try to find solutions to respect our planet and each other, in dark times we need to start dreaming about better ones and find solutions for the future but dreams need to come true so try to make them reality.
Photography by Justine Loffredo for VEIN MAGAZINE
