Regarding
Marina Moldovan was born in Bucharest, Romania, into a family of artists, yet she has always felt that she was born, in a deeper sense, in Brașov — the city where she grew up, formed her perspective, and learned to see the world as a place of stories, contradictions and possibilities.
She studied design at the University of Art and Design in Bucharest, but soon found herself drawn beyond the boundaries of conventional design. Rather than following an established path, she began to search for a language of her own — one that could exist somewhere between fashion, art, typography and everyday life.
That search became Skin Deep.
Born from a profound need to express herself and, at the same time, to connect with others, Skin Deep became a space where thoughts, words and emotions could take physical form. Marina began creating clothing not as seasonal fashion, but as wearable objects — pieces carrying fragments of language, personal observations, humour, intimacy and stories. For her, clothing has never been merely about appearance. It is a surface on which identity can be written. Words become images. Images become objects. Objects become a form of communication.
Her work explores the peculiar intimacy of wearing something that says what you might be thinking, feeling or simply wanting to leave in the world. A phrase can become a private joke shared with strangers; a few words can reveal something deeply personal; an ordinary expression can become an object of recognition. This is where Marina's practice lives — in the space between the personal and the collective, between what is said and what is felt, between the body and the message. She does not create collections in the traditional sense. She creates objects that happen to be wearable, each carrying its own voice and its own story.
Skin Deep is ultimately an ongoing conversation: between Marina and the people who encounter her work, between language and image, between the intimate and the universal. Because sometimes, the things we wear are not there to tell the world who we are.
They are there to say something we could not quite put into words ourselves.
Beyond Skin Deep
Alongside Skin Deep, Marina’s second strong passion has always been branding — the art of giving ideas, places and businesses a visual language of their own.
Through her branding studio, she works particularly closely with the hospitality industry, creating identities for restaurants, cafés, hotels and food concepts. Her approach goes beyond aesthetics: she looks for the story, atmosphere and personality behind a place, translating them into identities that feel distinctive, memorable and alive.
With a deep appreciation for food, culture and the rituals surrounding hospitality, Marina sees branding as another form of storytelling — one that turns a place into an experience long before the first encounter.
A Practice Shaped by Experience
Over the years, she has built a diverse creative practice, working with both independent businesses and internationally recognised, high-profile clients. Her experience spans branding, art direction, graphic design and visual communication, allowing her to move effortlessly between intimate, highly personal projects and large-scale commercial work.
After establishing herself creatively in Romania, Marina continued to develop her practice in Austria, working within advertising agencies and gaining extensive experience in the fast-paced world of commercial communication. Working alongside multidisciplinary teams and on projects for major clients sharpened her understanding of strategy, storytelling and the power of a strong visual idea.
Today, she brings this combination of artistic instinct, agency experience and entrepreneurial independence into her own creative practice — approaching every project with the same curiosity: to find the idea beneath the surface and give it a form that people can feel, recognise and remember.