Visiting Fellow

Filep Motwary (b. 1977, Cyprus) is a fashion theorist, curator, author, and interdisciplinary creative whose work examines the intersection of fashion, art, craft, and visual culture. His research-led practice foregrounds the dialogue between haute couture, prêt-à-porter, material heritage, and contemporary artistic production. 

Since 2018, Motwary has served as Editor-at-Large of Vogue Greece, contributing long-form interviews and critical essays that frequently circulate within the broader Condé Nast network. Over the past two decades, he has conducted more than 700 interviews with leading figures in fashion and art, contributing to contemporary discourse through sustained critical engagement with designers, curators, and cultural practitioners. 

Motwary’s curatorial practice is grounded in the exploration of fashion as both cultural artifact and artistic medium. In 2016, he curated Haute-à-Porter at Modemuseum Hasselt, an exhibition investigating the reciprocal influence between haute couture and ready-to-wear. The accompanying publication, Haute-à-Porter (Lannoo; distributed by Rizzoli), was widely circulated and the exhibition was recognized internationally for its scholarly and public impact. In 2022, he curated SYNERGY: Art into Fashion at the A.G. Leventis Gallery in Nicosia, further articulating the relationship between contemporary art practices and fashion design. 

His second book, Theorem[a]: The Body, Emotion + Politics in Fashion (Skira, 2019), developed in collaboration with Polimoda (Florence), examines the body as a site of aesthetic, emotional, and political expression. The volume features extended dialogues with influential cultural figures including Hussein Chalayan, Jean Paul Gaultier, Iris van Herpen, Pamela Golbin, Harold Koda, and Michèle Lamy, among others. 

Motwary is the creator and director of #craftingcyprus, a research-based film series commissioned by the Cyprus Handicraft Service and the Cyprus Press and Information Office with the support of the Deputy Ministry of Culture. The project documents endangered craft practices and repositions them within contemporary cultural discourse. Episodes from the series were presented at the Révélations Biennial at the Grand Palais (Paris) and at the Design Museum in Barcelona and more recently in Oslo and Berlin, contributing to international conversations on material heritage and sustainable production. 

His work extends to performance and costume design, with garments exhibited in institutions including the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Saint-Brieuc, Centraal Museum (Utrecht), the Benaki Museum (Athens), and La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris). Through these projects, he advances fashion as a performative and museological language capable of mediating between archive, body, and space. 

Motwary has collaborated with cultural institutions and festivals internationally, including the Hyères Festival (2011–2015), where he worked alongside Jean-Pierre Blanc. His curatorial and research contributions also include participation in thematic interview series initiated by Linda Loppa and contributions later published in Momenting the Memento (2014). 

In addition to his curatorial and publishing activities, Motwary serves as a visiting lecturer at Polimoda (Florence) and UCLan University (Cyprus), where he teaches fashion curation and art direction. His pedagogical approach emphasizes critical inquiry, cross-disciplinary methodology, and the role of fashion within broader cultural and political frameworks. 

Across his practice—spanning exhibition-making, publishing, filmmaking, performance, and pedagogy—Motwary positions fashion as a critical field of study and a medium through which histories of craft, identity, and artistic production are continuously renegotiated.