Creativity and innovation define Isabel Zapardiez’s career as well as her experience in various design disciplines, although bridal design is her main hallmark. She carries the passion for couture in her DNA, with an early vocation for dressmaking that has marked her life, her professional development and her working method.
At an early stage, she developed her professional life in the prêt-à-porter world, in her own brand and collaborating with other fashion firms on different projects. In 2002 she burst into the world of Haute Couture under the brand of her own name where she is the creative director, opening her first studio in San Sebastian.
Her work is framed within the Couture universe, for the exquisite fabrics, the exclusivity of the designs and the detailed tailoring carried out in her workshops in San Sebastian and Pamplona. Her premises are elegance and subtlety, but also innovation, originality and the audacity to trace her own paths to portray the essence of each woman in a dress.
Isabel Zapardiez’s inspiration is made of contrasts and fusions, of concepts and experiences, the experiences of all the women she has dressed and of references to the aesthetic worlds that she is passionate about. A very personal, yet cosmopolitan universe that Isabel Zapardiez has turned into a renowned brand with its own identity.
Our studios are the spaces where Isabel Zapardiez shapes her creations. Your ideas and dreams bring life to the fabrics in order to create exclusive pieces that will be part of you. Dresses that identify you and reflect the brand’s philosophy: to design and create tailor-made gowns that transmit each woman´s personality, made from the highest quality fabrics.
Handmade in our workshops, each Isabel Zapardiez dress is made by expert hands, a team of qualified professionals, specialists in craft techniques that embody the highest demands in cutting, pattern making and tailoring in each and every creation.
In our studios, assistance and customer service become the center of a unique shopping experience as an integral part of the haute couture experience.
The creation process is an itinerary in which each woman is the true protagonist. It begins with a personal interview with Isabel; at that moment, the dress design is sketched departing from a certain fabric, a cut, an accessory or a simple inspiration… all paths are opened to imagination…and invite to enjoyment.
Once the design is agreed, a “toile” is made out of it in order to personalize the pattern down to the millimeter. It is the time when the first sensations become certainties, halfway to the dress of your dreams. At this point the dressmaking begins as well as the selection of other accessories.
At Isabel Zapardiez we are committed to sustainability. Achieving equality between people, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity are the goals to which we aspire to contribute, in line with the 2030 United Nations Agenda, made up of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We have aligned our sustainability strategy to achieve the SDGs at all stages of our activity, from garment design to sales, in our studios or online. The SDGs are an indispensable beacon to guarantee a positive impact and we have focused on pursuing especially four of them, reinforcing our original philosophy based on slow-fashion and made-to-order criteria.
Our values set a firm commitment to the handmade, the local, the unique and the special, aspects inherent to haute couture and our work. Our history is defined by generating a lasting relationship between our clients and the garments that we design and manufacture, based on a timeless design that entails longevity, understood as increasing the active life of personalized high-quality garments. Likewise, we seek to minimize waste, trying to be zero-waste in all our processes and we also incorporate an upcycling vision, creatively reusing quality materials.
Our workforce, made up of 90% women, has been a reflection of our strong commitment to gender equality and talent promotion (SDG 5). Maintaining a work culture not based on exploitation but based on ethical values that consider social aspects such as stable and safe working conditions, salaries, the employment of local personnel or the maintenance of ancestral trades whose transmitters are mainly women, constitutes an undeniable duty of our brand, in order to promote the professionalization of the sector in opposition to the informal economy (SDG 8).
At Isabel Zapardiez know that it is part of our responsibility to continue facing the economic, social and environmental challenge through the constant incorporation of sustainable and circular policies. We look over the entire manufacturing cycle from the design phase, selecting raw materials with the least environmental impact, working to optimize waste and favor recycling (SDG 12), ultimately seeking responsible production and consumption. Our brand does not forget about climate action (SDG 13); aware of the high rates of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the textile sector, we work to be energy efficient, using renewable energies in our activity, while we offer a repair service for our garments according to their end of life cycle. Ultimately, we want to move towards a circular paradigm that balances our relationship with nature and people.