The Limburg capital Maastricht was transformed into a true fashion city when the fashion festival FashionClash took place over the weekend – a fashion event that gives young designers a stage in a light-hearted way. The public was invited to participate in fashion through exhibitions, workshops, lectures, films and fashion shows.
The focus of the 15th edition is not on the end result, but on the joint creations and the creative process. The fifteenth edition is not about the end result, but about the collaborative creations and the creative process. That’s why the organizers Branko Popovic, Els Petit and Jessie Beurskens took the reins and invited five young fashion designers to design “the new narrative of fashion”. But what does that mean? And who decides what the new narrative of fashion looks like?
The five fashion designers, who were not in contact before the project, put their heads together and agreed that the focus should be on the process rather than the end result. “The end result, be it a collection in a store or creations shown at exhibitions, is often celebrated under the name of a single person. However, getting to this end result requires a thought process and a collective approach. We believe this deserves a bigger stage,” said Enzo Aït Kaci, one of the appointed curators, on the opening night. The vision of the five young fashion designers results in a FashionClash edition full of new forms of expression. FashionUnited was there and reported on the highlights of the fashion weekend.
New fashion narratives
The message of the fashion festival became visible immediately after the opening of the program with the exhibition New Fashion Narratives at Bureau Europa. The New Fashion Narratives exhibition shows creations by 22 international fashion designers with whom the five appointed young curators designed the exhibition. This also included the work of designer Timothy Scholte/Mary-Ann, which was shown on metal frames. In his work, Scholte made sketches out of steel. Many of his works begin with welded metal frames in which he experiments and explores new forms. The result of these experiments appeared in the form of exhibited clothing stretched over metal frames. They highlighted the material and tactile qualities of his creative process.
The collection brought attention to the way people dress to feel desired. Scholte explores the use of clothing to transform the body. He is inspired by motorcycle culture, because motorcycle clothing not only protects but also strengthens the body.
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Another designer who stands out with her work is Chaewon Kong. The designer is inspired by her personal experiences and values and in her creations she deals with topics that often affect the body. This time she exhibited “Dare to Wear” – three mannequins wearing corsets. It quickly became apparent that the corsets did not fit around the dolls’ bodies, indicating the lack of variety in mannequin shapes.
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The ‘Booklook’ project
With her “Booklook” project, researcher and designer Anouk Beckers is committed to bringing the story behind the garment back to the fore. Beckers is of the opinion that clothing items need to be valued more again. In a world where magazines highlight a new item of clothing every month, that’s just difficult, she said during a conversation in a small bookstore on Saturday morning. So she decided to take matters into her own hands and “hack” current magazines by working on a series of magazines that could be unfolded and re-folded into a piece of clothing (such as a shirt, pants, or apron). can be folded into a magazine. The aim of Booklook is to challenge the dominant commercial narratives in fashion and redefine the role of fashion in garments in cultural, social, political and economic contexts.
The second edition of the project is dedicated, among other things, to do-it-yourself practices in fashion. Beckers believes that craft techniques such as knitting, embroidery, pattern making and sewing are often viewed as hobbies and rarely explored. The magazine includes researcher Alessandra Varisco’s essay “Fragments of DIY Stories” and short chapters dealing, for example, with the historical perspective of DIY practices and their function in defining the role of women and the rights of garment workers, as well as the impact of DIY magazines on consumer behavior and the relationship between home working and industrial clothing production. The magazine has everything a “normal” magazine has – images, text, page numbers, a reading order and the familiar square shape. The only difference: it’s printed on fabric-like paper (which means the magazine can be washed in the washing machine) and it can be turned into a shirt.
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The ‘Clash House’
On Saturday evening, an illustrious crowd moved to the second floor of Studio Ranium, where the ‘Clash House’ event took place. Participants from all over Europe, supported by professional theater actors, had spent the last few months rehearsing presentations that distanced themselves from a “normal” fashion show. Dutch designer Ruben Jurriën, for example, took this message very seriously and transformed the stage into a true musical spectacle, while Jean Flogie tried to make the audience laugh with the presentation of his “Fake Oscars.”
Jurriën shows his collection ‘Super Femboyant’, which stands for softness and enormous strength. During the performance, several muscular models attempted to lift a block labeled “super f*cking heavy.” When Jurriën himself entered the stage in a pink dress, he was laughed at by the models. The Dutch designer ignored them and lovingly combated the nasty behavior by singing a song. When it became apparent that “gentleness” had more power than a “strong demeanor,” the models joined him and the audience began to cheer. The message was clear.
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Someone who also knew how to convey the message clearly, but in a completely different way, was the designer duo Maash with the opening number of the evening. A male model, wearing only beige tights, walked around a cross-shaped structure with several coats hanging from it. With each round he put on a new coat and threw it back on the ground. As the piece progressed, the model sprinted across the stage and in the end could no longer keep up with his own pace. Maash was alluding to the fast fashion industry, which the designer duo believes needs to change significantly.
fashion films
In a world that is now dominated by digitalization, fashion films cannot be missing from FashionClash. On Friday evening, the audience was taken to the Lumière, where five selected films were shown and had the chance to win the “FashionClash Festival Fashion Film Award” and the “Kaltblut Magazine Award – Fashion Film & Video”. The designer Cristian Velasco won first prize with his film ‘Retarzos’. The Kaltblut Magazine Award went to Ashim Ahluwalia, whose film ‘HUM’ uses conceptual fashion to question the inequality between class and gender. The main characters in the film wear do-it-yourself outfits that symbolize the upgrading of everything that has been thrown away. Discarded bracelets, cleaning supplies, garbage bags and carpets were transformed into artistic outfits.
The journey as a destination is also a symbol of FashionClash’s approach to the next editions, said Popovic in a short interview shortly after the opening. “This is perhaps more important than the end result and ensures that everyone involved in the process has their say, which is very important to FashionClash.”
This translated and edited post previously appeared on FashionUnited.nl