DATE: 18th June 2024. PLACE: Paris Fashion Week. TIME: 19.30
Tuesday’s graduate show at IFM, Paris’s largest fashion school on the banks of the Seine. Thirty-one young talents walked the runway, each presenting six looks, They say a good movie should start with an explosion and end with a dramatic climax, and that’s exactly what happened at this show. From the opening collection by Noah Almonte, who has designed artfully sculpted surrealist outfits in quilted nylon and bold plaids, and who clearly has the talent to walk into a Parisian haute couture atelier. His performance was followed by that of Théophane Sorin, a French designer whose gathers, technical finesse and unexpected final encounter between pleated silk with honorable mentions go to Dani Reto’s (Iraq) wacky brides, Gwen Bodiu’s (France) claustrophobic dresses, Emanuel Simmerle’s (Italy) magical cut-out cartoon fantasies and especially Anthony Icones’ (France) “cowboy cool” volumes, it was pure theatre.
All the young hopefuls shared a two-look finale, with each designer ostentatiously wearing “Ceasefire Now.” In Milan over the last four days, no one at men’s fashion week made a single reference to Gaza, while Paris spoke out on the first day of the six-day runway show, which kicked off today.
Dani Reto
Dani Reto
Dani Reto
Gwen Bodiou
Gwen Bodiou “My collection is about a weird and awkward guy who doesn’t know how to stand and act in society,” says the designer Gwen Bodiou. Additionally, the guy also thinks he is a superhero. A lot of designers think of a generic character when they design their clothes, but Gwen thought of a very specific person. Some people may be confused by the weirdness of the guy, but Gwen used this as an opportunity to play. “I am playing a lot with the idea of attitude and I am trying to find it through this guy’s eyes – his idea of coolness, sexiness or sensuality,” he adds. He really wanted to figure out how garments help the character to be himself, to pose, to express. Throughout his research process, one of Gwen’s main inspirations was the TV show Batman, filmed in 1966. In this show, the heroes look very ridiculous in very serious situations, whilst portraying a very old-fashioned image of masculinity. Gwen was very intrigued by this juxtaposition. Additionally, he was intrigued by modern meme culture, and the “cringe face”, which again, relates to his character – a person who wants to be invisible, but ends up looking ridiculous. “The process was very interesting because I started by thinking about attitudes and how movements would influence clothes,” he says. Then the first prototypes came around and he had a lot of fun by getting inspired through unusual garments, like the superhero cape. Even though this was a fun collection to work on, finding the right balance between funny and awkward and elegant and subtle was a challenge.
Gwen Bodiou
Noah Almonte
Noah Almonte
Noah Almonte
Yujia Sun
Yujia Sun
Yujia Sun
Antoine Lafleur
Antoine Lafleur
Antoine Lafleur
“If I had to sum it up in a few sentences, I would say that this collection features silhouettes imbued with a naïve clumsiness,” says the designer Antoine Lafleur. “It reveals, in a childlike manner, how to create a counterfeit synthetic elegance with whatever is at hand.” The aim of the collection was to create a conversation between a normal guy growing up in the world and a fashion student, growing into the fashion sphere. To make this happen, he juxtaposed 50s and 60s haute couture references that he discovered throughout his research, with something super poetic, raw and basic about Paris, the urban landscapes, the textures, but also the people and their attitude. “My inspiration mainly comes from what surrounds me, the conversations I have, the people I love, and the banality of everyday life that everyone tries in their own way to shape into something exceptional,” he says. He loves sourcing new fabrics – each silhouette has a surprising element. Some of them have a special material, some have a really unusual fabric in general. “I like to show something literal while playing with the eye of the beholder,” he says. Bringing all his constant inspirations together was a challenge, but the result is a coherent, well-constructed, and of course, a surprising collection.
Antoine Lafleur
Antoine Lafleur
Hyeonseo Yoo
Hyeonseo Yoo was inspired by uniforms for her final collection. “The more identical they are, the more distinct they appear,” she says. Uniforms hold power, they create an iconic image from a distance. “In fashion, a significant moment happens when culture emerges. This happens when many people start copying the same style,” she adds. “By using prints, I can transform ready-made garments into something symbolic and maintain their functionality and simplicity while adding formal elements,” she explains. In her collection, she created a tailored jacket, made entirely from jersey that looks like a tailored garment. Her biggest learning throughout was to understand that creating a graduation collection meant to create something visually strong that will impress people.
Hyeonseo Yoo
Hyeonseo Yoo
Hyeonseo Yoo
Hyeonseo Yoo
Jeanne Godin
Looking at dualities, Jeanne Godin took inspiration from the double-meaning. Her collection expresses dualities in all its forms – being and appearing, the natural and the artificial. “It has been constructed as a humorous composition of synthetic elements in primary colours, such as balloons, and animals in parts,” she says. The us, as in the almost primitive part of the human being, was represented with animal-esque shapes made from furry materials. The positive side was expressed with colour and synthetic material through the medium of balloons. “With a sort of confusion between the two, like as if animals transformed into balloons,” she adds. For the balloon part, the thermos was very complex to use, since it is normally used in small shapes and not on textiles. “It didn’t stick to all fabrics, couldn’t be repaired, some materials wouldn’t fit on the sewing machine, so I had to sew a lot of pieces by hand,” she says. “I really had a hard time because of that but I am very happy with the result.
Jeanne Godin
Paco Fausset Leroy Thomas
Katherine Zhi Wen Chen
Victoria Yujin Kwon
Zoe Lubken
Zoe Lubken
Imagine a scene of chaotic nightlife monsters. This may sound unfamiliar but it’s what Zoe Lubken’s graduate collection is about. “They’re emerging out of a party that lasted hours, maybe days. They are pleasantly strange – in a fun and goofy sort of way. They are also dirty and sweaty. The monsters inhabit the chaos unleased during night life – the true and authentic self that emerges when we are able to let loose far from social constraints,” they say. You may think they are strange, but they exist to embrace the strange. They embrace themselves to the fullest. “For this collection, I drew inspiration from the crazy creatures of the night that I have encountered, and all that they have taught me,” they add. Zoe chose this theme, because the monsters encapsulate their chaotic tendencies. “I decided to reclaim all the things I was shamed for and turn them into my signature club bizarre trademarks. Wrinkled dirt coated clothes left at the back of the club became my fabric treatment, coming sweaty out of the club became a “sweat” scotch sweater, the t shirt that I would wear upside down gave me inspiration for the giant custom clothing tags, having to walk out of the club without my pants having lost them gave me inspiration for the giant latex bob and a messy bag became a hooping chewing gum bag full of lost junk.” This collection is a testament of reclaiming inner insecurities, but also a way to show how proud you should be of yourself, no matter what the others say.
Soo-Hyun-Sim
Soo-Hyun-Sim
Soo-Hyun-Sim
