Parv’s mother, a jewellery and childrenswear designer, was the first woman to inspire her. Born and raised in the Estonian capital of Tallinn alongside her two brothers, she was crafting garments by the time she was six and produced her first collection at the age of 15. She was the type of teenager who did it all and was frustratingly good at it all. She sang, she danced, she trained in theatre, but where she really excelled was on the running track.

“I was like the third-top runner in the Baltic states,” she remembers. “I was in training from the age of nine. I had a boy’s body and my period was late because I was doing so much sport. I think I’m quite competitive because of that. Did she dream of the Olympic Games? “No, because I didn’t want to be a runner forever.”

While her mother nurtured her creative abilities, her father, an engineer, instilled an appreciation of structure and form. It makes sense, then, that her parents’ professional backgrounds combined with her talent for athletics would lead to an interest in producing highly functional, moveable, “engineered formalwear”.

“I went to the Coco Chanel exhibition at the V&A and I burst into tears. Where she came from and what she built is so personal to me. She’s my muse as a designer”

This page: recycled nylon shirt JOHANNA PARV, top worn underneath stylist’s own, wool and cashmere cap NOEL STEWART, leather pumps MANOLO BLAHNIK. Opposite page: recycled nylon jacket JOHANNA PARV, patent and reclaimed leather cap NOEL STEWART, leather pumps ALAÏA