Ema Savahl Honors The Goddess Within At Miami Swim Week, The Shows

Ema Savahl (born Ema Koja) knows what it’s like to transform herself. The designer, whose work has been worn by Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Paris Hilton, creates works of art for the female form.

Her butterfly tops have gained recognition and are still a top seller. It all started in the 1990s.

Savahl grew up in communist Albania and was a self-taught seamstress and painter. She left the country in 1990, working as a professional volleyball player in Italy, then became a fit model for brands like Blue Marine, Parah and Off Limit.

In 1996, Savahl moved to Miami, working in a vintage store in South Beach, just down the street from the Versace Mansion. When product was slow to sell, Savahl started painting prints onto vintage dresses, which were bought by Helena Christensen and Linda Evangelista, among others.

It became harder to keep up with the sales, and just as she saw a street vendor selling giant butterflies on Lincoln Road, which she bought, she held her first fashion show and the butterfly-inspired garments were born out of her own transformation from a caterpillar to butterfly.

Next year, the brand celebrates their 30 year anniversary. Leading up to this anniversary, Savahl launched her newest collection at the Mondrian South Beach for Miami Swim Week, The Shows, for her latest collection, “In Goddesses We Trust.”

Savahl has always been inspired by spiritual artists like Alex Grey, who talked about “cosmic creativity” in his TED Talk. The collection, which benefited the Little Lighthouse Foundation, honored feminine power.

“I think it has been a challenging few months for everybody,” said Savahl. “I live in the world of women, and for the moment, like, a lot of us are losing people that we love. People that have been in our lives for a very long time. It was happening somehow to everybody I know.”

Savahl was feeling nostalgic and looked back to her first collection, which incorporated vintage pieces. “It was like my soul, as I recall coming from Albania, and as I was designing in Miami,” she said.

“But as I was going through this journey of remembering, I went through a moment I needed to shed, let go, and empty my vessel to allow a new life to come through,” she said.

The whole collection is inspired by Neurographics, a type of automatic drawing. Neurographic art was created by Russian psychologist Pavel Piskarev in 2014, an intuitive style of drawing that allows the hand to make free-flowing gestures. It is commonly used in art therapy.

“It’s a modality to help people to fix or harmonize energies inside them,” explains Savahl. “When drawing a Neurographic drawing, I think of the feelings I wish to let go of, the emptiness I wanted to create, and in all the crossroads of this, I scribble and I curve all the lines on the page. But the finality is me healing myself.”

The collection uses hues of lavender, gold, and green for embellished one pieces, sparkly bikini sets and lots of light fabric flowing from the arms, hips and waist—even capes. It has a Burning Man meets Midsummer Night’s Dream feel to it.

The butterfly influence is found throughout all of Savahl’s collections, including these latest garments. There are some catsuit-inspired designs, as well as vintage-inspired corsets, flowing couture gowns and hand painted metallic accessories.

Savahl, who worked with DJ Eli Love for the runway show and Iryna Shulzhenko on the floral headpieces, turned to the chakras for color inspiration: She used purple and red to represent the highs and lows, the beginning and end of our personal transformations.

Inspired by spiritual transformation, each look represented one of 12 goddess archetypes, brought to life through neurographic patterns symbolizing healing and rebirth.

Savahl feels connected to ancient goddesses. “We trust in God, but this is time for the goddesses to rise and have a voice, a voice of compassion, a voice of love, a voice to stop war, a voice of peace,” she said. “I don’t want to just say it, I want to scream it so loud from the bottom of my heart.”

She adds: “I just wanted to scream life through myself so I can heal myself, I can clean myself, and I can make myself empty for the new life that is ready to come in. So it’s about transformation.”

Albanian model Tika Camaj opened the show.