Ester Manas

Ester Manas and Balthazar Delepierre met while both were enrolled in the five-year fashion program at La Cambre art school in Brussels. Each interned at established houses before starting their own label: their training included stints at Annemie Verbeke, Balenciaga, Paco Rabanne, and Acne Studios. In 2018 the duo entered the Hyères International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories and won the Galeries Lafayette prize, a result that gave them the platform to officially launch their own brand, Ester Manas, in 2019. Based in Brussels, the label built its identity around size inclusivity from the outset, designing pieces such as ruched dresses that use elastic gathering to fit a wide range of body types rather than producing separate patterns for each size. That approach, unusual in a fashion landscape still dominated by narrow sample sizing, drew attention from press and industry alike as the pair began showing at Paris Fashion Week. The label has since been recognized with the H&M Design Award, was a finalist for the LVMH Prize, and received the ANDAM Prize, awards that mark it as one of the more closely watched size-inclusive brands to emerge from the Hyères festival pipeline. Manas and Delepierre, who married in 2023, continue to run the label together as co-founders and creative directors, positioning it as a sustainability-minded alternative to fast fashion's size defaults.