ROCARINA is a sustainable fashion design studio based in Girona and Barcelona, Spain. Working worldwide.

Feminism, veganism and sustainability are the three main topics that currently drive my life and my brand. I like to come up with prickly social subjects, explore them and reflect them into my collections to empower others. I truly think that the processes of taking waste materials to turn them into new garments are really worth. Thanks to these processes the impact will be much lower if we compare it to all the resources already invested in making the fabric in the first place. I always design having the four circular design strategies in mind. Design with meaning, taking in mind the end of life of a garment, caring about the material choice, caring about every single detail to make the pieces as sustainable and ethical as possible. I am passionate about working with any kind of textile waste whenever possible. I love creating something new from waste. It is a very exciting process! I want to revalue this job, and I want people to know that there is a lot of hard work involved in creating just one garment. By doing this labour I feel that I’m working everyday to build a better place to be proud of. I think this is one of the most rewarding feelings.

The magic of fashion is that it has the power to make positive change, and collaboration plays an important role to beginning to re-imagine currently damaging systems. If we truly want to see a brighter future, I think it is essential to start creating new projects and to propose different ways to approach all the fashion industry problems. I think that small brands that truly believe in sustainable, ethical and fair fashion are key to start building an empowered community. I want to devote myself to this revolution, to be faithful to my principles and values and earn a decent living at it.

Carina Roca Portella is a sustainable fashion designer from Girona, Spain.
She holds a BA in Fashion Design from ESDi, Barcelona, an MA in Creative Direction and Advanced pattern Making from IDEP, Barcelona, and an MA in Management of the Fashion and Design Industry from ESDi, Barcelona. She also coursed several short courses about textile printing and fashion illustration.

After the bachelor’s graduation she worked as a freelancer for Rocambolesc, designing new sustainable uniforms for their crew. Then, she worked for a fast fashion brand as a designer for almost a year. She had good time there, but it was defenitelly not her place. It didn’t fullfil her soul because the work itself went against almost all her core values, as a designer and also as a human being.
As you can see, she is currently working as a freelance fashion designer in her sustainable fashion studio called Rocarina. heheh

In 2017, she won an Silver Laus award for Vadenassos project. In 2018, she was selected as Best Emerging Fashion Designer by Gimoda. Later in 2019 she was selected as one of the ten finalists of the Redress Design Award, the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition. She finally ended up winning the Runner-up prize and a mentorship with Orsola de Castro, founder and creative director of Fashion Revolution.

Exhibition in Hong Kong at Kerry Hotel (Sept 2019)
Exhibition in Amsterdam at Fashion for Good (Dec 2019)