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Saima Murtaza

Fortress Builders

Saima Murtaza is a qualified art enthusiast with diverse experience and a history of developing solutions for theme-based projects. Using her initiative, design skills, and knowledge of fine arts, she has introduced various original ideas including metallic handcrafted sculptures that reflect both the contemporary and traditional cultural styles. She believes in bringing forth innovative, sustainable, and unique fine quality art pieces. Bridging the gap between past and present through her artwork, helping the audience to appreciate and experience the historical art forms, Saima wants to pay homage to cultural roots and preserve these traditions into contemporary forms.

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Luis Muñoz Jean Baptiste

Fortress Builders

Luis Muñoz Jean Baptiste is the co-founder of Bureau105 and works as a graphic designer, certified brand strategist, and certified cultural intelligence facilitator. Luis works with brands and projects to redefine their visual identity as well as their brand strategy and how they interact with the world around them. Luis’s work is part of the permanent collection in the contemporary section at The Museun of Avant-garde in Switzerland. Outside of the office, he splits his time between comic horror graphic novels, heavy rock and music by Danny Elfman, and his vast collection of paint brushes to create and experiment with.

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Anton Abela

Fortress Builders

Anton (ton-ton) Abela’s Art tends to delve into the realms of the real, imagined, unconventional, and the unknown. Inspiration comes mostly from the human form, nature, dreams, horror, literature, and his personal experiences. The artworks range from different media and techniques using the bright and dark colours so synonymous with the Maltese islands. Influenced by handmade Maltese tiles, his artistic and creative processes are focused towards breathing a new life to discarded and salvaged items: looking to the past and nature to create something innovative. The artist describes this as “art from the other side”.

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Charles & Ron

Fortress Builders

Charles & Ron is a contemporary Maltese lifestyle brand with a signature style that draws inspiration from the archipelago, featuring Mediterranean motifs, colours, and stories in all collections. Charles and Ron van Maarschalkerweerd Borg have now been partners for 30 years, and together turned Charles & Ron into Malta’s leading fashion brand. Brushed with a 1990’s fashion sensibility in its design yet still timeless and effortlessly commercial, their work is regularly featured in international magazines, Hollywood music videos, and red carpets. Among several career highlights, in 2018 they were selected to exhibit at Buckingham Palace for the Commonwealth Fashion Exchange.

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Matthew Scerri

Fortress Builders

As a passionate product design student, Matthew Scerri excels in sketching and intricate detailing, transforming concepts from drawings into 3D realities. His forte lies in jewellery design and making, combining hands-on experience with detail to bring exquisite pieces to life. Working alongside a jeweller, he is currently honing his skills on traditional techniques, but is equally fascinated by the innovative methods emerging in the industry and eager to integrate them into his creations. While his primary focus is on jewellery design, he is also deeply interested in exploring other facets of industrial and product design, continually expanding his creative horizons.

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Nadège Renée Cassar

Fortress Builders

Nadège Renée Cassar’s venture as a designer and producer of contemporary jewellery started in 2005, when she set up a small workshop named Nadège.Renée. The underlying concept of her jewellery is uniqueness, and she designs and produces her own lines of exclusive or limited-edition pieces, using gold and sterling silver as the core metals and combining them with various precious or non-precious materials. She has a flair for designing transformable jewellery – pieces that can be altered or adapted to suit different needs, tastes, and styles – and also enjoys creating bespoke jewellery by recycling her clients’ precious metals and stones.

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James Dimech

Fortress Builders

James Dimech has been professionally involved in design for 30 years, with a vast experience ranging from residential to commercial property interior design and architecture. Artistically inclined, he achieved a BA Hons in Design and enhanced his skills, following specialized courses in Italy. This led him to a successful debut into the world of fashion design, creating beautiful garments using recycled and sustainable materials. The focus of his work follows the incorporation of three-dimensional sculptural forms into fashion, exploring and solving the relationship between the organic human form and the geometric forms handcrafted by a variety of paper folding techniques.

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Gabriel Grima

Fortress Builders

Having recently graduated from MCAST, Gabriel Grima is a fashion designer with a passion for exploring the intersection of nature and fashion. Through his work, Gabriel seeks to blend natural elements with contemporary design, creating pieces that are both innovative and deeply connected to the world around us.

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Luke Azzopardi Studio

Auberge d'Aragon

Luke Azzopardi’s methodology of fusing together powerful visuals, academic research, and artisanal design is what distinguishes his work as one of Malta’s foremost fashion artists. This translates into the ethos of the maison, a self-sustainable atelier embracing concept-based fashion and beauty. Looking at fashion as an art object, wearable products are presented as results of investigations into art history, and studio events are designed as immersive cultural experiences. The Studio focuses on the idea of timeless elegance and is a proud champion of the slow fashion movement – upholding the highest ethical standards while keeping their environmental impact to a minimum.

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Becky Grech

Auberge d'Aragon

Becky Grech, Bx, is a Maltese shoe designer and industrial design lecturer. She discovered shoemaking in 2013, leading to self-guided learning, apprenticeships, and formal training, including a London course. Dedicated to preserving shoemaking art, Becky’s diverse design reflects her character and constant experimentation. She launched BX Design, focusing on sustainability, innovation, and staying true to oneself. Her work goes beyond creating shoes; she nurtures the craft, shares her knowledge, and researches Malta’s shoemaking history. Her shoes have also won her recognitions, including the Premju Ġieħ l-Artiġjanat Malti 2023 in the Textiles category awarded by the Malta Crafts Foundation.