A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, Swiss designer Kevin Germanier was among the standout independent fashion names during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
He first gained attention at the opening ceremony by dressing Italian Paralympic fencer Beatrice "Bebe" Vio Grandis, but it was at the closing ceremony that his vision truly shone.
For that ceremony Germanier created the costumes for the Golden Voyager, a futuristic space traveler, and for pianist-composer Alain Roche. For the former, he employed 20,000 upcycled gold beads and sequins sourced from a Hong Kong supplier, while for the latter, he reimagined his own VHS tapes from his mother's basement into a striking design.
Renowned for his innovative and sustainable approach, Germanier has built his signature aesthetic around upcycled materials – beads, feathers, and sequins in particular – a practice he began as a student, when financial limitations led him to repurpose discarded textiles such as bed sheets and embellishments.
This ethos remains central to his work, even in couture. For his first couture show, which closed Paris Fashion Week and was titled "Les Globuleuses", he expanded on his signature beaded creations, bringing even more vibrancy and complexity to his work.
In some pieces, upcycled beads were arranged into pixelated motifs, creating expanding patterns across the models' bodies. Close-up details revealed surprising elements: colored pencils and long, reed-like structures sculpted like pencils, all integrated into the garments. Accessories played a key role, with intricately beaded headbands and boots fully encrusted in beads completing the looks.
The designer pushed his experimentation further, thrifting jackets and shoes from iconic houses like Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, then transforming them with hand-applied beading and crystal embellishments for an extravagant yet surprisingly wearable vintage wardrobe for both men and women.
While some critics argue that Germanier's signature color-drenched beading risks of making him a one-trick pony, a closer look at the craftsmanship – all beading is done by hand – offers a fresh perspective on his practice. Beyond beadwork, the collection also featured feathers, raffia, and knitwear and crochet pieces.
The crocheted lamé designs included crenellated, wave-like structures, reminiscent of the intricate formations found in coral reefs, biological manifestations of what we call hyperbolic geometry. These undulating surfaces hinted at an underlying mathematical influence, perhaps even a nod to Daina Taimina's studies on hyperbolic crochet and tactile mathematics.
Positioning himself at the intersection of theatricality, sustainability and couture, Germanier hopes to highlight the finest craftsmanship from artisans worldwide through his designs. In this collection he continued for example his collaboration with Brazilian crochet artisan Gustavo Silvestre and promises he will remain committed to upcycling materials (it will be worth watching how he applies this approach to the costumes he is designing for the Eurovision Song Contest in May).
When Germanier designed the costumes for the performers at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony he turned to textiles from LVMH's Nona Source, a platform dedicated to repurposing luxury deadstock fabrics.
A similar approach was taken by Spanish designer María Bernad, who incorporated Nona Source materials into the A/W 25 collection for her label, Les Fleurs Studio, her first commercially produced.
Titled "Lost Objects," Bernad structured her show in two distinct parts: the first embraced a soft, romantic aesthetic, with crocheted doilies embellishing structured suit jackets, lace overlays, and wool-and-lace trousers.
Bernad further expanded her womenswear vocabulary, integrating found lace, embroidery, and crochet work, with small doilies repurposed into delicate ruffles cascading down a long skirt. A tiered skirt, crafted entirely from her own offcuts, reinforced her commitment to zero-waste design.
Vintage tablecloths were transformed into skirts and veils, while sheer silks were either sculpted into a voluminous balloon-pouf gown or ripped into strips to create fluid movement on a top. The jewelry, made in collaboration with Mineral Weather, was crafted from rescued lamps and fixtures, adding another layer of reclaimed beauty to the collection.
The second half of the show took a bolder, more experimental turn. Leather scraps were reworked into corsets and skirts, while layered cords adorned hand-stitched black suits, evoking a style somewhere between The Girl on the Motorcycle and Edward Scissorhands.
The standout pieces, however, were bomber jackets, tailored blazers and a top with a floral motif, assembled from 18th-century tapestries salvaged from estate sales and flea markets across Europe, each garment a fragment of history, reimagined as contemporary fashion.
Reusing crocheted doilies or sections of tapestry works in fashion is nothing new; it has even appeared in costume design, as seen in Fellini's The Clowns (with costumes by Danilo Donati, View this photo). Nowadays, designers like Marine Serre have elevated the art of recycling and upcycling, turning discarded textiles, including bed sheets and crocheted tablecloths, into high-concept fashion. While Bernad is still finding her creative footing and some pieces are not totally convincing yet, her fascination with forgotten artifacts, textiles imbued with history and memory, suggests that her approach to giving the past new life may take her work to the next level.
In different ways Germanier and Bernad's commitment to reinvention prove us that discarding is not necessary and that there is power and beauty in everything.
Speaking of preserving and repurposing textiles, some Haute Couture collections may provide us with some ideas and inspirations for further experiments. Tapestries for example also found their place in Alessandro Michele's Haute Couture S/S 25 collection for Valentino, where a grand gown was made with a cross-stitched tapestry fabric and a long black velvet skirt was adorned with a beaded embroidered panel that looked like a tapestry.
Actually inserting tapestry panels in velvet designs is far from new. My mother, for example, owned a velvet and tapestry ensemble that was handmade in the 1970s. Though the skirt was lost long ago, I still have the top, which features a large tapestry panel across the front and back, with sleeves crafted from alternating strips of tapestry and crepe.
As fashion remains cyclical, rather than upcycling, recycling, or reinventing – as seen with Germanier, Bernad, or Michele – for me, it will simply be a matter of re-wearing.
