The winners of the 34th edition of the Hyères International Festival were announced yesterday after a weekend of presentations and exhibitions at Louis Mallet-Stevens' Villa Noailles.
The jury awarded the Grand Prix Première Vision to Austrian designer Christoph Rumpf, from Vienna's University of Applied Arts.
Most garments in Christoph Rumpf's menswear collection were created with repurposed fabrics and elements, including Persian carpets, fringed beaded trims from belly-dancer costumes and textiles used for car seats.
The designs were characterised by strong silhouettes and an emphasis on volumes, slightly reminiscent of creations by Craig Green (where Rumf actually interned).
The jury also granted an Honorable Mention to a Japanese trio - Tetsuya Doi, Yota Anazawa, and Manami Toda - for their womenswear collection made with repurposed vintage finds, deadstock materials and upcycled fabrics.
Upcycling is a need and a logical conclusion for the youngest generations of designers who seem to be more conscious about the impact fashion has had so far on the environment and who may have become more aware about certain practices such as destroying unsold garments.
Yet upcycling has become a trend that too often revolves around collaged pieces: in the last few years we have seen for example Marine Serre, winner of the 2017 LVMH Prize, who has become known for her scarf dresses and garments made with a frayed-edged made with strips of floral fabrics reminiscent of the fringes of Iranian carpets.
At the moment London is celebrating Fashion Revolution Week (FRW) and among the designers involved there is also Duran Lantink.
More famous for Janelle Monáe's vagina pants in her video Pynk and currently on the shortlist for the 2019 LVMH Prize, Lantink actually did rather intriguing photographic projects with the homeless community in Amsterdam and with sex workers in Cape Town that show his interest in diversity.
Equally fascinated, scared and repulsed by sale riots (think about Black Friday...) and the discount practice in the fashion industry, Lantink has developed garments made with upcycled fabrics and with overstock from charity shops and fashion houses. His garments are assemblages and collages made with bits and pieces from different fashion brands such as Chanel, Lanvin, J.W. Anderson and Dior, just to mention a few of them.
Until today Lantink is at concept shop 50M in Belgravia, London, for a designer residency: for five-days he hosted appointments with customers interested in giving him old items that will be transformed into new pieces in his Amsterdam-based atelier.
Lantink seems to excel at recombining outerwear garments, while shoes look a bit problematic, and he loves detailing his Frankenstein operations on his Instagram page with the precision of a mathematician.
Now, while upcycling is the most logical reaction to deal with textile waste, the most surprising thing about the new wave of young designers who are into this trend is their lack of a uniquely original vision: most of them seem to have taken a passion for dissecting Persian carpets and reassembling scarves into tops and dresses.
And while some of them have undoubtedly turned sustainable fashion around, coming up with fun pieces, at times the results they come up with reek of Margiela-isms. After all, reclaiming vintage pieces, accessories and random objects (think about baseball gloves, combs, windsurfing sails and crystal doorknobs) were definitely Margiela's fixations (in a way also the Persian carpet theme is a Margiela trope... View this photo).
In the last few years there have also been collections recycling luxury fabrics or vintage designs: Margiela's Artisanal S/S 14 collection featured shirts with panels made with Mariano Fortuny's fabrics, evening gowns created by draping Frank Lloyd Wright's interior design fabrics and coats (one with a Gauguin's painting) collaged out of thick tapestries.
In more recent years Viktor & Rolf's Haute Couture S/S 17 collection was also an exercise in repurposing fabrics and garments since it featured shifts, cocktail dresses, pants and evening gowns made by recombining together sectioned pieces from vintage dresses from the '40s or from iconic designs by Courrèges.
There's optimism in the possibility of reusing fabrics and textiles (especially when it is done in a socially responsible and clever way - think about Anna Heringer's project showcased last year at the Venice Architecture Biennale), but there is a certain bitterness when you consider that the practice of upcycling was a trend decades ago when people couldn't afford new clothes, but we forgot about it. So this practice that should actually represent the future of fashion comes from the past.
During the Second World War many women would make underwear and dresses from parachute silk, while coats were turned inside out when one side would get too worn. So thinking that repurposing a Persian carpet is an innovative idea proves that we are rather ignorant not just about the history of fashion, but about history in general.
There are also other dilemmas when it comes to designers reusing luxury clothes. Will the brands involved see this exercise as an infringement of copyright? Well, Lantink has actually been contacted by labels that want to work with him so his unique creations may become collaborations.
And this is where things may become more interesting: fashion houses may indeed try and make more leftover materials available for designers keen on experimenting in more innovative ways with them. For example, leftovers of ribbons and straps are thrown away by the manufacturers producing them for luxury brands as they can't be reused being branded and labels fear they may be used for counterfeit products if they give them away. Now, better policies could be developed also for what regards these smaller materials that could become components.
As for young fashion designers, yes, they should definitely upcycle materials, but they should also try and find their own glossary to do so, rather than just collaging bits and pieces together. There's a whole world to discover in the fashionable debris and detritus we produce every day. We just need to explore it better and find more innovative solutions also when it comes to accessories. But, for God's sake, leave those carpets alone.
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