While bustling between shows during New York Fashion Week we were thrilled to happen upon Nsha Atelier. The new label debuted this year with a collection that represents a seamless union of its multi-cultural roots while highlighting the influences that define it. Designed by Erika Kurihara, who is of Japanese and Swedish descent, shot by Australian filmmaker Cameron Smith and meticulously hand produced by Thai artisans, the collection’s aesthetic demonstrates an intellectual ability to simplify the complex.

Resisting overly convoluted styles, Nsha Atelier focuses on luxurious fabrics, consisting mainly of Egyptian cottons and silk, highlighted by clean silhouettes and accented with subtle details of tonal stitching or a single Swarovski button. The combination of international perspectives allows the collection to transcend fleeting trends and lends itself to a much more engaging and enduring trans-global end use. Evoking a futurist urban landscape, the collection was inspired by the likes of surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and Russian artist Pavel Pepperstein.

Kurihara collaborates with local Bangkok craftspeople, allowing the label to grow organically as part of an existing dialogue while capitalizing on the burgeoning creativity that characterizes modern Thailand. The pieces in the collection ranged from open-back button-down shirts to asymmetrical dresses, and demonstrated a combination of timeless and contemporary relevance.

The collection was appropriately revealed at Fashion Week in Singapore, a stylistically progressive hub that serves as an East-meets-West business center. Since its introduction just earlier this year, Nsha Atelier has been picked up by incubator specialty retailers such as Fred Segal and Jades in Germany, which will carry the line starting in Spring 2011.