#eli corvalis

Silene Boladonis, creative director of Silene, started her third year as a working designer with her very first resort collection. It is a known fact to the fashion world that Silene has no formal training in garment construction, but instead served the Hierarchy as a product engineer for her mandatory length of service. 

Detractors have put her rise to power to many reasons, including her close connections to the influential movers and shakers of the Citadel party world- but not for her talent and creative skills as a designer.

She proved them wrong with her last show, a memorable collection that closed with a fluttering dress that was a cross-multicultural clash of Thessian-based ocean fauna, batarian patterns, and bioluminescent love poetry. A controversial choice, especially on Kahje; to most, it was a beautifully unifying message wrapped in the colour and extravagance the universe sorely needed: fashion could be fun again.

With a couple of stronger collections under her belt, Silene is now free to experiment with the more lucrative format of a Resort collection, but keep to that multicultural touch leftover from her last collection. This time ancient human architecture and the vistas of Macedyn, a turian colony, were her main inspiration. 

“When I look at art and culture across the galaxy, it’s always the similarities that interest me, we’re more alike than we think. Macedyn is a very old, culturally rich colony that survived the war; the similarities to the old human cities of Earth are striking, right down to the colours of the land and seascapes. To me it just made sense to use both in a resort collection.” 

Silene also chose to use ‘ordinary people’ to model her clothes, instead of VIs and professional models. Lieutenant Colonel Eliana Corvalis-Arrieta was chosen to represent the turian collection- fitting, considering her role on Macedyn. “I was born here,” she said, via a vidcall to the colony. “Macedyn is my blood. I’m just one among many trying to help rebuild and start over.” 

When asked why she agreed to model, Corvalis-Arrieta only smiles. “I’m only a structural engineer, but I’m a good fit for the project, once it was explained to me. I’m a great example of the collection in real life- I’m a Corvalis-Arrieta for a reason, I married a human.” 

Proceeds of the collection go towards three charities: The Macedyn Rebuild Foundation, Kellams Industries, and The Alliance Relief Fund.