CICAEDIA is a name born from a mispronunciation. Cicada became cicaedia, not by design but by accident, and it stuck. It sounded like something ancient, something crawling and electric, something that never fully dies. That’s how the label began. Not with a logo or a business plan, but with a word that didn’t exist until I gave it meaning.

I’m Yitzhak Rosenberg. I created CICAEDIA in 2021. It was founded alongside Sheryl Haut and my father, the late David Rosenberg. This brand is the result of obsession and compulsion, grief and devotion. A haunted thing, a living archive. It doesn’t just house garments, it holds stories.

In 2023, I launched Atelier Cicaedia as a separate but blood-linked extension of the ready-to-wear line. Atelier Cicaedia began as a vessel for the one-of-one work I created while at Parsons, many of which were shaped by the memory of my late father, a personal influence that became central to my time at Parsons, and who was the primary inspiration for my Senior thesis and Spring 2026 collection ‘This ones for you, dad’. When faculty urged me to remove imagery related to him, it triggered a sharp dissonance between what the work meant and what I was being told it should be. That tension led to a depressive spiral in which I stopped meeting deadlines entirely, ultimately removing myself from all final showcasing for Parsons’ 2025 thesis year. Though painful, the experience clarified my need for creative autonomy and led me to claim the atelier as my own archive, built on my terms, where grief and memory aren’t obstacles but materials.

I’ve never followed school in a traditional way, not in high school, and definitely not at Parsons. The structure never really held up, especially for how expensive it was. Courses often strayed from the syllabus, guidance felt inconsistent, and the overall atmosphere leaned more corporate than creative. The building felt sterile, the kind of place where inspiration had to be forced. A lot of the faculty felt checked out, disinterested in anything outside their narrow preferences, and the system itself often felt more like a performance than a place for actual growth.

But the students were the reason to stay. They were the soul of the place. The conversations, the collaboration, the urgency, that’s what made it matter. I learned early on how to work the system just enough: tailoring assignments to reflect professors’ tastes while using that framework to slip in my own voice. I played along, but only to protect my creative freedom. And when graduation came, I didn’t go. I knew whatever Parsons could have handed me that day, title, stage, applause, was something I’d find on my own terms. What mattered most wasn’t their recognition, but the work I’d already made and the future I knew I was carving without their permission.

My work spans multiple disciplines but they’re all in service of the same vision. Fashion design is the core, but it doesn’t stop there. I style, sculpt, weld, photograph, design graphics, build sets, compose soundtracks. I don’t believe in staying in one lane. I switch mediums like changing tools mid-surgery. When I’m tired of sewing, I carve metal. When fashion sketches become claustrophobic, I build physical environments. It’s about velocity. Movement. I follow impulse, but I follow it with precision.

My shows aren’t shows. They’re emotional sequences. Full worlds. I build façades, shoot films, time music to heel strikes. I approach each collection like a director. Story is the driving factor. Every piece is a character. The set becomes the world they’re trapped in. The soundtrack is what they’re hearing inside their heads. If I could build a full house for the models to live in for the duration of a show, I would. Not for scale. For immersion.

The clothing always leads but the environment around it matters. I’m not interested in placing a dress in a void. I want to control everything around it. I want to tell you how it smells, what it sounds like, how it feels when it brushes your skin. The emotion matters as much as the silhouette. That’s the power of fashion when it’s cinematic. It doesn’t just clothe. It consumes.

CICAEDIA isn’t trend-driven. It’s mood-driven. It’s rooted in story. Sometimes the stories come from my own life. Sometimes they’re drawn from film, literature, mythology, trauma. Other times they come from a single found image or a dream that didn’t make sense. I don’t need a linear plot to begin. I need a feeling I can’t shake. That becomes the seed. Then I build the rest around it.

I’ve always designed from emotion. What I can’t say out loud ends up in the lining. What I remember too vividly becomes a cut, a shape, a seam. I don’t treat my trauma like spectacle but I do let it speak. I dress it. Let it walk the runway. There’s something beautiful in that. Turning pain into something that can’t be ignored. Something that holds its head up and demands to be looked at.

Set design, makeup, light direction, jewelry. Every piece is choreographed. Every choice is deliberate. Nothing is filler. I want my audience to feel like they’re walking into a memory they didn’t realize was theirs. Not nostalgia. Not fantasy. Something sharper. More intimate. Something that lingers after the lights go down.

Fashion history is a key reference point but not for imitation. I don’t believe in pastiche. I believe in echo. I look at figures like Gianni Versace, not just for the aesthetics, but for the conviction. The unapologetic maximalism. The eroticism, the sorrow, the glamor, the danger. Versace understood what it meant to seduce and devastate in the same breath. That’s what I take with me.

I want my work to live in that same contradiction. Beautiful and a little violent. Seductive and wounded. I’m not trying to make a clean product. I want people to feel something sharp in their chest when they see a look come down the runway. Something sexy. Something off. A tingle in the wrong place. A reaction they weren’t expecting.

CICAEDIA is not minimalist. It’s not about clean lines and simplicity. It’s about tension. Layers. Weight. Detail. Even the simplest piece is loaded. Every choice is a reference to something else. A scene, a scream, I treat garments like objects. Present. Performative. Alive.

My archive is building slowly and I treat it like a film reel. A living document. Each season adds a new sequence. A new cast. I don’t believe in throwing things away. I believe in letting them return in new forms. Recurring motifs. Recast actors. Looks from previous shows reappearing like ghosts in new light. I like the idea of haunting my own work. Of never quite letting go.

When I say I’m inspired by cinema, I don’t just mean the visuals. I mean the choreography. The pacing. The way a cut can devastate more than dialogue. The way silence can hurt more than a scream. I build my collections to feel like that. Not just wearable. Watchable. You don’t just see the look. You remember it like a scene. You feel it in your stomach.

Sound is part of the story too. I build my soundtracks like scores. Sometimes I mix them myself. I use voice clips, ambient sounds, distortion. I want the audience to feel destabilized. Not confused. Emotionally shifted. I’m not chasing applause. I’m chasing tension. I want people to leave my shows feeling like they witnessed something too intimate.

Jewelry plays a similar role. In many ways it’s armor. I weld pieces that feel hard, almost surgical. Titanium, silver, chains, crystal. Materials that look dangerous up close but shimmer in the right light. Jewelry for me is punctuation. The sharp edge at the end of a sentence. The glint that catches the eye and doesn’t let go.

I design for people who are drawn to intensity. Not necessarily loudness, but presence. I don’t want my clothes to whisper. I want them to speak clearly. To seduce, to provoke, to mourn. Sometimes all at once. Fashion isn’t about silence. It’s about signal. And I want mine to come through unmistakably.

I don’t design mass-market collections. I design pieces for people who collect stories. Who want to wear emotion like skin. I believe the right garment can shift your posture, your pace, your gaze. It can turn a room into a stage. A hallway into a runway. Not because it’s loud. Because it’s right. Because it fits the feeling. Because it knows something about you.

CICAEDIA isn’t for everyone. That’s the point. It’s meant to stick with you, not blend in. It’s not fast. It’s not quiet. It’s not waiting for permission. It’s mine. And it’s alive.

This is not just a brand. It’s a language. The thing that keeps coming back every summer.

It emerges. And it sings.