Tête-à-Tête with Gisele Azad

04.28.2026

Gisele, born in Tehran and now living in a quiet forest in the Netherlands, is a writer and creative exploring ideas of home, identity, and stillness. After years of moving between cities like Berlin and Amsterdam, she came to see home as a decision rather than a place. Her life today unfolds at a slower pace, shaped by nature and distance from the industry’s rhythm. This stillness informs both her writing and her way of dressing, where refinement meets ease. Drawn to craftsmanship and intention, she approaches fashion as both structure and expression. Her aesthetic shifts gently with her surroundings, always grounded in simplicity and clarity.

//Please introduce yourself.

I’m Gisele. I was born in Tehran, and I now live in a national park in the Netherlands, in a small house in the forest, with my fiancé, Rudmer. The days are mostly quiet here. I write a monthly column for Vogue called Back to Nature, and I’m working on my first book, Home. I hope it will be published this year. It feels fitting to be writing about home while learning, slowly, how to inhabit one.

//How has your cultural background and personal journey shaped the way you express yourself, both in life and through style?

I spent my twenties in motion. Berlin, Amsterdam, Malmö. I rarely stayed longer than a year. There is a particular joy in leaving (for me), in packing lightly, in arriving somewhere no one knows your name. Berlin was the city that marked me most. It gave permission. To be excessive, to be quiet, to be strange. To understand that self-expression is not performance for me mostly but release.

For a long time, I told myself I was searching. New languages, new streets, new versions of myself. Only later did I understand that movement can be its own form of avoidance. I loved beginnings because beginnings require no proof. You can be anyone in a place where no one remembers who you were yesterday.

The harder truth was that I did not feel at home anywhere. Not in Tehran, not in Berlin, nowhere. So I kept moving. It took me years to see that home is less geography and more decision.

//How do you stay grounded in your own aesthetic while navigating an industry that constantly evolves?

I live far from the tempo of the industry now. Trends arrive late here, if at all. The “it” bag feels abstract when you are walking through wet grass in the morning.

In the forest, there is no audience. No algorithm. Just time. I’ve learned that when I allow myself to be alone, properly alone, ideas surface with a clarity that doesn’t require validation. Stillness is not emptiness; it is a kind of editing.

I don’t feel pressure to keep up. With what, exactly? The cycle feels self-generating. Out here, the seasons are a more reliable calendar. I trust that whatever is meant to unfold will do so, without urgency.

//Describe your go-to uniform.

Most mornings, I wake up in our small house and walk to our cabin atelier. The ritual is simple. Comfort matters because the days are tactile.

I often wear a co-ord set. Silk trousers and a blouse, or tailored trousers with a T-shirt. I like structure, but I don’t like stiffness. Thick wool socks with clogs. Tailoring softened by something rural. The tension between refinement and utility feels honest to where I am in my life.

//Does the way you dress reflect the way you view the world?

I think everything reflects how we see the world, especially the things we claim are superficial.

When I wear something beautifully made, I feel it immediately, in my posture, in the way I enter a room. Craftsmanship carries weight. A garment that understands the female body changes the body in return. For me, the story behind a piece matters. Who made it. How it was constructed. Whether it was rushed or considered. I suppose I am drawn to things, and people, that are considered.

//What role does tailoring and craftsmanship play in your relationship with fashion?

We built our atelier from the ground up. Designed it ourselves. Chose each material. My fiancé worked closely with the builders to make sure the details were right, the lines, the joints, the weight of the wood.

Watching something come into form so slowly changed me. It made me want to approach everything that way. The food I eat. The friendships I keep. The wardrobe I build. Nothing accidental. Nothing excessive.

Clothing protects, yes. It shields. But it also signals intention. I don’t see it as armor in the aggressive sense. It’s more like architecture. A structure you move through the world in.

//Your life moves between different landscapes and rhythms. How does your environment shape what you lean toward?

At home, the palette is restrained. Earth tones. Natural fabrics. Shapes that allow for movement. The silhouettes are softer, less declarative. They belong to the forest.

When I travel, when I step back into cities, I feel playful in a different way, probably the girl I was in Berlin. Open and curious. I reach for stronger tailoring, a defined shoulder, a heel. I rarely dress in patterns or bold colours, I let the craft and tailoring speak for itself.

//Can you recommend a piece of writing to ease us into spring?

Modern Nature by Derek Jarman.

It’s about gardening, about building a garden in an unlikely place along the English coast. But it’s also about illness, time, beauty, and devotion. It reminds you that tending to something living is an act of defiance. Spring feels like the right moment to read it.

//Favorite ice cream flavor?

Last summer in Antwerp, I tasted porcini ice cream. It’s still on my mind haha.