His father, Kostadin, works in construction, and his mother, Tinka, worked as a cleaner but now works in the studio, helping her son with a variety of logistical tasks. She has short-cropped hair dyed purple. That day she was sewing buttons onto a batch of newly arrived grey hand-crocheted cardigans from the Autumn and Winter 2022 collection and also booking flights from Bulgaria to London so that a family friend could personally courier over the final samples for the Spring and Summer 2023 show due to take place later in the month in Paris.

Save for a short period just after founding his label, when he worked with factories in the United Kingdom, Kiko has manufactured all his collections in Bulgaria, using a mixture of artisanal handicraft and garment factories. Tinka has been key in establishing the connections. “She’s basically our fixer out there,” Kiko told me. “Some of the factories are very traditional, former Soviet places, but actually they are surprisingly open to the things we send them. They’re willing to try things – more than a lot of factories in Italy would be.”

Those “things” end up as Kiko’s runway collections. He wheeled over a rail of clothes that were being prepared for his show. The collection was inspired in part by the artist Danh Vo, whose work repurposing the colonial history of his native Vietnam had inspired Kiko’s decision to embrace influences from the era of Ottoman rule in his own country through cuts and fabrics reminiscent of janissary uniforms.