Ask most people what Transylvania looks like and they will describe a castle on a hill, a billowing cloak, a full moon. Designer Dora Abodi has spent the better part of two decades offering a richer answer. At her fashion house, ABODI Transylvania, the region's legends are not costume material but living things: retold, repainted and cut into garments that sit somewhere between couture, sculpture and storytelling.
Dora was born in Transylvania and raised in Budapest, where there was no distinction between daily life and art. She started drawing in her grandfather's studio at a young age because both her parents and grandfather were artists. According to her own account, she spent a big part of her early years creating clothes for her dolls and toys.
Her heritage is a layered one: Hungarian, Romanian, German, Dutch and Armenian, with Székler noble roots on top. That mix of cultures is part of why Transylvania, for her, is never a single story. She went on to study fashion at Mod'Art International and Domus Academy in Milan, and launched her label in 2009. Early recognition followed, including the Academy-Vogue Talents special award in 2012 and a place on the Future of Fashion programme in 2014.
The degree to which ABODI has created an imaginary universe sets it apart from a label that only appropriates a pattern. The Twin Unisus Empire, vampires, cat mermaids, moon and sun kings, water villas, and four-headed dragons are just a few of the myths the house has created throughout the years. According to one description, each collection evokes a distinct legendary figure, and the clothing, ceramics, bags, and hand-painted dresses are treasures from that realm.
Crucially, Dora is not illustrating folklore so much as translating its mood. Rather than printing a legend onto a dress, she works from the emotional atmosphere of a story: its tenderness, its menace, its strangeness. Her Transylvanian Chronicles collection, shot by longtime collaborator Szilveszter Makó, takes on the Dracula myth with a surreal eye, down to a painted coat that is as much a canvas as outerwear.
In early 2026, performance artist Marina Abramović presented a dress Abodi designed, titled Mourning of Kalotaszeg, inspired by the mourning dress of Transylvania's Kalotaszeg region.
For a wider audience, Abodi's name became attached to a single image in February 2025. At the 67th Grammy Awards, Jaden Smith arrived in a Louis Vuitton suit and a black, turreted castle worn like a helmet, his face framed by its gate. The piece was the ABODI Vampire Castle headpiece, made to order for his appearance, and the internet had opinions. Plenty of people mocked the "house hat"; others admired the nerve of it.
The label's own account described the piece as a blend of ABODI's mysterious elegance with a bold modern design, drawing on Transylvanian history and the vampire legends of the Báthori family. On Instagram it called the Vampire Castle a symbol of boldness, strength of spirit and loyalty to folklore. The same sculptural piece is sold through the brand's site for around €4,500.
There is an argument running through Dora’s work: that a place's stories belong to the people who come from it, and that they are free to keep changing them. Transylvania has long been told to the world through other people's eyes, usually with fangs. Dora, who calls the region a layered manuscript of folklore, memory and shadow, answers with a version that is stranger, warmer and far more personal.
For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.