Calissa Teiniker
What’s your name and where are you from/based?
Calissa Teiniker, originally from Auckland, New Zealand. Based in Paris, France.
Can you describe your practice in a few words?
My practice involves creating experimental, artisanal knitted textiles using different types of knitting machines.
Growing up, what early inspirations led you toward fashion?
I used to watch a lot of fashion shows on YouTube growing up. Alexander McQueen was my biggest inspiration. I started designing and sewing when I was seventeen years old.
How did knitwear first find its way into your practice?
Originally, I was mostly interested in tailoring. However, I had some knitwear classes during my Bachelor’s degree and fell in love with the process and the ability to experiment and create something entirely new.
Your studies were supervised by Hussein Chalayan, whose work often responds to research into society and technology rather than simply decorative garments. How did this experience play into your direction?
His mentorship was definitely both conceptual and practical. I gained a lot of insight from him in regard to finding the balance between the two. He strongly encouraged internal analysis and the act of bringing a personal dimension into my design process.
Your latest collection feels deeply attuned to the intricacies of the body, almost as if anatomy itself is translated into knit. How did this sensitivity to the body guide your design process?
I’ve always thought of knitwear as something inherently intimate – it lives directly on the body, it stretches, it responds, it remembers. For this collection, I became very attentive to the body not just as a silhouette, but as a landscape of tensions and vulnerabilities. I was thinking about muscle, bone, and skin – about what is structural and what is soft – and how knit, as a medium, can express both simultaneously.
I chose an IUD as the object that drove and inspired the project. The IUD is a tool for protection, which conceptually translates into something armor-like when externalized. The knitwear for this project was intended to resemble a form of armor. It uses techniques that create structure and volume while still remaining stretchy and comfortable to wear.
Your bachelor collection, “From Demons to Desires” reinterprets the Seven Deadly Sins as individual characters. What led you to choosing this framework, and what do they mean to you?
I wanted the collection to serve not only as an exploration of the visual language associated with moral and cultural archetypes, but also as a statement on the modern reevaluation of morality, individuality, and self-expression. Each piece aimed to communicate a specific “sin” as both a challenge to and an embrace of contemporary values, encouraging viewers to question their own perceptions of vice and virtue and to see these qualities as complex facets of human identity.
For the g10 collective show, you were invited as a guest designer to create a capsule collection around the theme “Second Skin.” How did you approach translating this idea of intimacy to the body?
“Second Skin” is about the intimate interaction between garments and the skin beneath them. I wanted to create knitted garments as a tool for body autonomy, in which the wearer is prioritized and empowered. The unique silhouetting allows the wearer to accentuate curves, folds, scars, and other often-hidden elements of the body in a responsive way. This is achieved through ladders in the knitwear, tuck stitching that creates almost crustacean-like shells, and backless or sleeveless sections – areas where the skin shows through.
What are you interested in exploring next in future collections?
I am interested in continuing to push the boundaries of knitwear while keeping my practice artisanal. I think it is a challenge for young artists and designers to make this work within the current state of the industry. However, I also believe there is something special in the shift away from mass production toward something slower and handcrafted.
Where can people find you?
My Instagram is @calissateiniker for current work. I am currently completing my Master of Arts in Knitwear Design at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, France. You can find me there for the next year and a half.
