University of Ljubljana

Professional Background

Gaja Hanzel is a fashion and graphic designer born in 1988 and she is the visionary behind her sustainable fashion brand Fi by Gaja. From a young age, she felt a creative restlessness that guided her towards the world of design. Gaja pursued her studies in fashion and graphic design at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering in Ljubljana, where she graduated in 2011 with a degree in fashion design and in 2016 with a Master's degree in Graphic and Interactive Communications. She received the Faculty Preseren Award for her master's thesis "Typographic Textile Curtain" (commissioned by the Kosovelov dom Sezana). Since 2018, she has been self-employed as a designer, and a year later her fashion brand Fi by Gaja was launched.

Since 2019, Gaja has dedicated her talent to crafting sustainable fashion accessories, with a particular focus on bags, under her brand Fi by Gaja. Her goal is to contribute to a better, more environmentally friendly future in fashion, which is why she embraces the principles of slow and ethical fashion in her designs. She meticulously researches and selects sustainable, innovative, and plant-based materials which are friendly to people, animals, and the environment.

In 2019 she received the Bronze A' Design Award for the logo and visual identity of her gallery Ana & Gaja Art Gallery. In 2020, her cellulose handbag collection One More Time was awarded the Made in Slovenia Badge of Excellence by the Centre for Creativity and the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia. This collection was presentet at a traveling exhibition The Future of Living at 32 locations and events dedicated to design and creative economy all over the world. In 2023 she was a finalist at Zagreb Design Week and had the chance to present her collections Eternal Balance and Terra in Zagreb, Croatia.