Some of the best – the most arresting, nuanced, and unexpected – fashion photographs weren’t taken by fashion photographers. Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Walker Evans, Bill Brandt, Diane Arbus, Roy DeCarava, Francesca Woodman, Sally Mann, Dawoud Bey: whether they intended to or not, practically anyone who made a picture of a person in clothes made a fashion photograph. Often a terrific one.

Maybe because they came into their own in a period when fashion spreads were beginning to look like snapshots or reportage, contemporary photographers like Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Cindy Sherman, Collier Schorr, and Wolfgang Tillmans slip more easily between fashion and personal work and often exhibit them side by side. It’s the work that was made without any conscious concern for fashion that seems especially eloquent and revealing about the essence of style.

Look closely and fashion photographs are everywhere, but they have nothing to do with models or designer credits. Captioning an image ‘This Is Not a Fashion Photograph’ alerts the viewer to its casual complexity and the potential for a more layered reading.

Of course, context helps. The photograph here opened the editorial section of the February 1946 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. It was taken on Fifth Avenue by Lisette Model, whose work for Bazaar was usually photojournalistic. From 1941 she reported on settlement houses, Bowery bars and circuses with work that legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch often printed in diverting, tumbling overlap, like spreads from a Sunday newspaper supplement.

Here, Model’s photo fills a page and introduces a remarkable portfolio of other images of the New York street. First, step back and consider the even larger context. Post war New York was bustling; America was enjoying an economic boom while Europe remained wounded, devastated.

Later in the same issue, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of a child wandering alone and overwhelmed in a displaced persons camp brings that point powerfully home. Model’s woman, striding confidently into a future that, for the first time in years, seemed nothing but bright, kicks off Bazaar like a casually chic chorus girl.

But the woman in the photo is hardly oblivious to the world at large. Black and white keeps Bazaar’s celebratory mood subdued, despite the American flag flapping in the background. Model’s work was not always subtle but it was complex, and Brodovitch gives her space to prove it.

The pages that follow that opening spread are devoted to her now-famous images of reflections in shop windows that shimmer and shatter into abstraction. The first, an almost panoramic frieze of eight women on a New York shopping street (half reflected ghosts, the others no less ephemeral), looks like a Cubist version of a spirit photograph. With all the hats and coats and fur collars on view, it’s another fashion photograph. Accidental, but wonderfully rich and descriptive. No pedestrians stroll by in Model’s third image, but the reflection of a framed Picasso painting of two nudes floats above a stone façade like a collector’s dream.

Under the direction of Brodovitch and editor Carmel Snow since 1934, Harper’s Bazaar published the work of a number of photographers and artists who fled Europe just before and during the war. Model and her husband Evsa arrived in 1938 and joined a group that included Martin Munkácsi, Man Ray, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Hoyningen-Huene, and cover artists A.M. Cassandre and Marcel Vertès.

Bill Brandt and Brassaï, both contributors to the February 1946 Bazaar, fled from London and Paris, respectively, and more regularly after the war. Even before its American contributors are taken into account, this was an extraordinary mix for any magazine, and it set a standard for fashion magazines that Vogue was challenged to match.

Model’s running leg was the inspiration for one of Richard Avedon’s most kinetic early Bazaar covers – the March 1948 colour shot of a woman stepping into a crosswalk in front of glinting cars. Although seen only from the knees down, her back leg nearly lost in a blur, she’s instantly recognisable as a New Yorker in a hurry.

But she doesn’t have the iconic impact of Model’s stop-motion leg or its implicit promise of a future worth running toward. Maybe the more important difference here is that Avedon’s cover was made as a fashion photograph (the shoes get a credit) and Model’s was not. We can claim Model for fashion, but she can elude our definition, lose nothing, and move on.

Fashion show soundtrack
Impossible to pick just one. John Galliano’s Autumn/Winter 1997 show for Christian Dior is probably up there—the dominant refrain in that one is John Williams’s ‘The Imperial March,’ aka Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

My favourite fashion show soundtrack, which I was a part of, was for Matthew Adams Dolan’s Spring/Summer 2020 show, which, borrowing from his ‘anti-prep’ aesthetics and beachy predilections, involved isolated snippets of speech from Laguna Beach and The Hills. We made hyper-platform Tevas for the show… it was blissfully nostalgic for this SoCal native.

Matthieu Blazy has also REALLY been tearing it. From Paula Cole to the trailer for The Hours. He’s doing something really sonically major at Chanel.

Fashion show I didn’t attend
I do wish I had attended any of Alexander McQueen’s shows, but the one that really comes to mind is his last, Plato’s Atlantis. I experienced it to a degree because it was just at the dawn of live streaming. I was a senior in high school in a tiny boarding school in Ojai, California, tucked in my little cabin of a dorm room, trying desperately to refresh the link to watch the show and totally freaking out over the armadillo shoes. I thought, ‘God, I can’t wait to get outta here and over there.’

Substack that isn’t mine
Cultural Production by Rian Phin.

Thing I learned on Substack
That Toni Morrison kept journals in which she vocalised her aspirations. They are visually rich and beautiful. At the time, I imagine they were also quite delusional. I like being reminded that great success is borne from delusion. No Marty Supreme but ‘Dream Big.’

Fashion look from a movie
It’s hardly a question! Donyale Luna in Skidoo from 1968.

Person I go to when I need creative inspiration
I speak to my twin sister, DoNormaal, who is my favourite rapper and creative mind.

Note I saw on Substack
This really killed me for some reason.

Investment piece I purchased
I bought two incredible Spring 2016 Prada dresses from a sample sale that I had Frankensteined together to fit me. Anything from Mrs Prada is a worthy investment. But I love this dress more than anything—I still get a thrill when I find a runway piece that got away when I was too broke to buy it!

Irl shop
Bart’s Books in Ojai is one of my favourite stores on earth. Obsessed with the indoor-outdoor concept that is definitely considered a design innovation by tourists but is just a function of a beautiful and trusting society. It’s all about discovery there, and that’s my favourite part of any store. I know where to go for what I want; I like a store that shows me something I didn’t even know to look for.

Online shop
I am pretty addicted to Live Auctioneers. I don’t know if that really counts, as it’s more of a hosting platform for auctions from across the country. I’ve used it to furnish and decorate my homes over the years, and I adore the thrill of a bidding war!!

Fashion item I stole
One of my best friends, Modesta, let me borrow a denim duster made by the darlings of the British fashion scene at the time: Marques Almeida, around 2011. I still have it. Girlhood is never giving a borrowed item back. Girlhood is theft.

Fashion magazine story
This is, admittedly, quite pedestrian. But ‘Grunge and Glory’ from the December 1992 issue of American Vogue, shot by Steven Meisel and styled by Grace Coddington, did something to my brain chemistry.

I guess when I discovered it much later in my teens, it was the first time I saw high fashion trying to emulate normative youth culture and approaching success. It felt like an honest story, or even a portrait, rather than a fashion fiction. It wasn’t… but I was impressed by the facsimile. I still am.

Fashion Instagram account I follow
I really appreciate Boring Not Com. I’m not super into the dragging that happens there, but I do not see how it is any different than the perhaps slightly more skillfully sheathed dragging of fashion journalists and critics who do the same in papers and on websites, or worse, snarkily at a dinner party.

I believe there is a truly revolutionary spirit behind embracing anonymity in a world where everyone wants eyes and attention and invites and BFA Photographs at events. I also think having an opinion that is informed by experience, if not expertise, has become an incredibly undervalued thing… I also like that it doesn’t give two shits about being validated or well liked by establishment fashion and how much establishment fashion HATES IT. I mean, there are countless articles from journalists talking about how much disdain they have for this anonymous account. It’s quite funny, actually.

Perhaps my enjoyment is reactionary to Style Not Com which I have always found to be quite sycophantic and useless for an audience member while being immeasurably valuable to the brands that pay him to post about their shows– I don’t need another press release in my life– certainly not one that is fawning, and, even worse, one that simply presents the facts that we can see with our own two eyes, in the most abbreviated version imaginable. I just think if you’re going to be online, you should be saying something with a point of view. I also think if you’re going to take money to publish content, you should be required to disclose that. FTC compliance is an important tool in supporting transparency in this landscape.

Fashion Instagram account I follow
Dr Qin, my ultimate obsession.

Person that inspired my teenage style
'Tie-Dye girl’ from The Parent Trap was formative for me, personally, in both look and attitude.

Music I listen to when I need to get work done
Let me tell you something: nothing will get you locked in like Trent Reznor’s score for The Social Network. If I hear ‘In Motion,’ I’m finishing the task at hand. But scores in general do the trick. I’m a big Johann Johannsson fan. There is one track on the score for ‘Arrivals’ that is eerie but beautiful and feels like discovery itself– it’s called “First Encounter,” then there’s ‘The Beast’ from his score for Sicario. A bit droney and doomy, but sometimes I need the suspense, like I’m motivating myself towards a crescendo. This is all sounding weirder than I intended…

Person that inspired my current style
Mrs Roper from Three’s Company and Erykah Badu.

Person whose closet I wish I could raid
I would risk a lot for a crack at Diana Ross’s coffers.

Outfit I wore recently
I really dug my look for the Chanel couture show this summer. The shirt I’m wearing reads ‘fashion needs more Black women,’ which is crazy true.

Outfit that made me fall out of love with someone
When Aurora James made a dress for AOC to wear to the Met Gala with the phrase ‘Tax the Rich’ written across the bum, it was actually a really illuminating moment for me in terms of seeing how intoxicating wealth and power, but also fame and attention, are and how easily an addiction to these things can corrupt intention. It was just one of those moments of fraudulence where the vapidity becomes crystal clear, and the trust dissolves.

Fashion lesson I learned
We’re not curing cancer. We are not fixing the world. We are serving a minority population with the luxury of engaging with style and aesthetics “formally” and consumptively. Nothing we do here should feel existential. It will be okay.

Fashion subculture
I am obsessed with Japanese Rockabillys. In fact, they inspired the story I shot for Vogue Magazine with Theo Liu starring the inimitable Devon Aoki!

Vivienne Westwood had died that year, and we saw all these odes to her punkish spirit across the runway. I could think of no better place to capture that essence– that renegade spirit– than Tokyo. It is my favourite shoot I have ever done and took up a big old chunk of centre-of-book real estate in the September 2023 Issue. Really proud of that one.

Also, this isn’t a fashion subculture per se, but it’s an ethnic identity and cultural group whose inherent visual language and modes of dress have deeply impacted my view on personal style and community/collective style.

I spent some formative childhood years in Long Beach, California, very close to a neighbourhood called Hawaiian Gardens. It was home to a vast pacific islander and Latinx community. I would look out the window on the way to school in awe at some of the Chicano style. To this day, the Cortez is my favourite Nike shoe, and I lose my mind for a Dickies work shirt and pants.

Outfit that feels like my signature style
Dirt bag shorts, a t-shirt (likely with words or a face on it), a Chanel slingback or other hyper femme heel, tons of jingle-jangles (FKA jewellery and asymmetrical earrings).

Item I always have in my bag
The question is really more about items I never have in my bag. To which I would answer: any of the day’s necessities, always including, but not limited to, my house keys.

There are fashion images so powerful that they appear both contemporary and ancient – born of encounters and exchanges, sometimes casual or merely commercial – that have become icons. Manifestos for a paradigm shift, belonging to a new kind of imagery in motion, extending even beyond fashion itself. These are images that not only tell of the garment, its creator, and the photographer’s vision, but that succeed in capturing the spirit of the age, and often in anticipating it.

One such image is a photograph taken by Paolo Roversi for Romeo Gigli’s Autumn/Winter 1988-1989 collection, featuring a young Kirsten Owen: the profile silhouette, with rosy complexion, emerges ethereal from a timeless, dark background. Her hair, gathered back, reveals a long neck; the framing is half-length, the garment only glimpsed in the transparency over the shoulders and the deep cut at the back.

It is the allegorical evocation of an idea, of a new vision. In the hint of an imminent movement, one perceives a tension that disrupts rigidity. The encounter between two extraordinary sensibilities, Gigli and Roversi, gave form to a silent revolution in both fashion and photography.

We are in the second half of the 1980s, dominated by the exuberant silhouettes and sculptural forms of Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Azzedine Alaïa and Gianni Versace. The clear simplicity of this image, recalling Italian Quattrocento iconography, breaks with the context of its time, anticipating the conceptual and minimalist sensibility of the 1990s. Still recognised today as one of the images that best distils a pure idea of beauty, it draws upon the classical world to give form to the new.

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Roversi and Gigli revive a Renaissance vision rooted in their cultural DNA, tied to Italy and in particular to Emilia-Romagna, where both were born. Kirsten Owen is portrayed in profile according to the 15th-century tradition derived from medals and Greco-Roman glyptics. Gigli has often declared his love for the painter Piero della Francesca, even using him as a reference for lookbooks. It is inevitable to think of the pose of the Dukes of Urbino, but also of the complexions and refined hairstyles of Pollaiolo and Ghirlandaio.

Romeo Gigli was already defined as ‘The Master of Understatement’ by his first Autumn/Winter 1983-1984 collections, as Holly Brubach remarked in the 1988 edition of American Vogue. His silhouette, like a gem in bloom, freed the female body from rigid forms, heavy make-up and forced hairstyles. It was an operation of subtraction, seeking the essence of form through journeys across distant times and worlds, onto which he layered decorations and embroideries.

This made him the only Italian designer close to the revolution pursued in Paris in those years by Japanese designers. Thanks to tailoring skills acquired in men’s ateliers in New York, Gigli created layered, knotted, draped forms of which similar styles are found across Asia both historically and in the contemporary moment: a wrapping of the body that enhances movement and energy. He employed fluid materials such as Lycra or jersey – among the first designers to do so – or metallic fabrics produced especially for him, but also silks, linen gauze, chiffon, wools, velvets and brocades in tones of garnet, ochre, bronze, copper green, tobacco and his signature aubergine.

This was a new femininity, fragile and mutable, which Gigli himself defined as ‘not asexual but modern,’ and which Paolo Roversi knew how to shape. After some initial catalogues made with his assistant Marc Roger, the long-desired collaboration with Roversi finally began with the Spring/Summer 1986 collection, continuing until 1989; also with the brand Callaghan. ‘Photography is not a reproduction, but rather a revelation,’ declared Roversi, thanks to his discovery in those years of Polaroid film with a large-format view camera.

The meeting of the two visionaries became light that defined an idea, a new mode of communication that made catalogues and lookbooks resemble art books. To embody this new vision was the young Kirsten Owen, whose career began almost by chance. As Gigli recalled: ‘It must have been in London in 1986 or 1987. Paolo and I saw a girl playing guitar in the street. She seemed very pretty, so we invited her to the studio and began taking photographs. That’s how Kirsten’s career began.’ Thus, these photographs were born, melancholic and eternal.

Fashion show soundtrack
A few years ago I keyed men’s makeup at one of Riccardo Tisci’s last shows for Burberry, which was set in an old building site in east London docks. Anne Imhof was doing a live performance piece with Eliza Douglas – head banging, drones, contemporary dance. Epic.

Fashion show I attended
I’ve done hundreds of shows, but mostly behind the scenes. I’ve worked with Junya Watanabe for over 10 years, and he is one of the highlights of my career for reasons that go far beyond make-up.

Fashion look from a movie
I watched Cabaret countless times as a kid, and I remember being hit hard by the role of Joel Grey as this Serge Lutens-ian, queer fashion and beauty creep. He’s a character that’s inspired me for years. Something that feels both surreal, Jungian and symbolic beyond just an aesthetic.

Thing I bought for under £50
Recently, an antique cast iron waffle maker from Kempton Park market.

Investment piece I purchased
I have a number of paintings from one of my favourite artists and closest friends, Phil Hale. Surrounding yourself with the energy of art you admire will do more for your wellbeing than any treatment.

Outfit that made me fall in love with someone
Bulgarian embroidered shirt, leather waistcoat and trousers, cowboy boots and a Dying Fetus cap.

Irl shop
Church in Los Angeles.

Online shop
Studio-Iron.com, obviously!

Person whose closet I wish I could raid
Any Mongolian reindeer herder.

Fashion item I prize more than any other
A Rick Owens black leather jacket with towering shoulders that my cat scratched 30 minutes after I got back home with it.

Advice I was given about working in the fashion industry
David Sims told me the single most important piece of advice when I was complaining about not finding people to collaborate with: ‘Do it yourself.’

My go-to going out make-up look
Clean teeth.

Instagram account I follow
@tetyanawrites.

Outfit I wore recently
Chainmail dress for the opening of my exhibition at Saatchi Yates.

Source for creative inspiration
Travel.

Make-up I wore when I was a teenager
A neon yellow and pink hair mascara from Miss Selfridge… So crusty.

Make-up I wore recently
I’ve just spent three weeks in the Mongolian wilderness with eagle hunters so… None?

Outfit that feels like my signature style
Motorcycling trousers, Cruda platform boots and one of my mum’s hand-knitted jumpers.

Trend I wish would disappear
Anything that’s called a trend.

Moment I knew I wanted to work in the industry
I was asked to do body painting for an editorial, and there was another ‘classic’ makeup artist on set. I was looking at their perfectly organised kit while scrubbing my paint brushes and clay basins in the sink and thought my life would be much easier if I did her job.

Music I listen to when I need to get work done
Doom is quite good for getting in the zone. That or Shida Shahabi.

Music I listen to when I need a break from work
Gregorian chants.

Snack for late nights in the studio
Other Foods mushroom crisps.

Advice I have about working in the fashion industry
Get away from it as much as you can :D

Luka Gviniashvili began collecting at a young age. When he was just sixteen years old, he founded Archived Couture in Tbilisi, Georgia, a project that reflects a collecting instinct that has never recognised disciplinary boundaries. Liturgical embroideries and ecclesiastical vestments, antique jewellery, historical sketches and ephemera, decorative arts and twentieth-century couture all exist within the same evolving archive. Each object is acquired for different reasons, whether it be historical significance, exceptional craftsmanship or simply an emotional connection.

Luka’s impulse is to collect, highlight, and share the kind of pieces that might otherwise be overlooked in today’s trend-driven archival fashion boom. Of all the designers he’s drawn to, Christian Lacroix holds a particular gravity. Over the years, Luka has built a vast Lacroix archive, spanning ready-to-wear, haute couture, accessories, invitations and other rare materials. The project naturally connected him with the French couturier, the two eventually developing a close friendship. ‘One of the things that still makes me smile is when Christian would send me an old runway image or just someone wearing his dress and ask if I remembered which season it was from. Those moments never stop feeling surreal,’ he says. The Archived Couture salon, located on a quiet Tbilisi street, has even become a physical reincarnation of what Lacroix’s Haute Couture Salon looked like at 73 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

Now based between Paris and Tbilisi, Luka shares some of his current favourite pieces across both cities.

Flame bag

I love this bag simply because of its iconic flame embroidery. According to interior designers Garouste & Bonetti, the motif was their creation. But while going through Christian’s early sketches, I found the same flame in a drawing he made when he was just fourteen years old. Long before it became the signature of his Haute Couture salon, it was already part of his visual language. The flame would later become one of the defining elements of the Maison, and eventually inspired our own interpretation at the Archived Couture salon in Tbilisi.

Yellow two-piece suit

There is nothing like seeing the original idea and the finished garment side by side. Here we have a two-piece design from Christian’s Spring/Summer 1991collection photographed alongside his original sketch for the design.

Original documents

This is what my dining table usually looks like because somehow the office desk is never enough. Original documents from the earliest years of the maison are among the most valuable resources an archivist can have. Very often, dating, identifying or understanding a piece depends on paperwork like this.

Spread across the table are original press releases and some other documents on top of which a haute couture bag is resting. When Christian saw my message, he wrote:

‘Just saw the couture bag on WhatsApp. Is this the one you got at an auction??? Can’t believe it, since it’s supposed to belong to the archives. I don’t remember us ever selling it. So much better in your hands!!!’

Haute Couture jacket

This design from Autumn/Winter 1995 has everything I love about Christian’s work: the cut, the structure, the contrast of materials, and crosses, portraits and devotional motifs used as adornments.

Haute Couture handbags

These two bags, photographed in our Tbilisi salon, are both haute couture. When Christian saw the second bag, he wrote to me: ‘Astonishing! You found this bag!!! In my mind it was a one-off couture piece, but perhaps we translated it into a more affordable ready-to-wear version?? Here the metal handle looks like the original by Hurel, the jeweller…He had to close his business when the couture years ended. I’ve been told all his prototypes have been auctioned…’

Haute Couture dress

Does it look simple? It’s not. But I guess one needs to hold it to understand. Silk satin with densely embroidered soutache, metallic thread and beadwork that almost disappears into the fabric.

Mirrored gloves

Gloves are some of the most playful pieces in Lacroix’s work. This pair from 1990 is adorned with tiny mirrors set in gilded metal frames on black suede. Could come in handy for the occasional makeup emergency.

Houndstooth suit

I acquired this suit years ago through Didier Ludot, the pioneering Paris vintage dealer. It’s from the 1988 Luxe line, Christian’s demi-couture collection, and features one of the defining houndstooth patterns of the season, which at the time was modelled by his muse, Marie Seznec Martinez.

Fashion show soundtrack
The Tom Ford Autumn/Winter 2026 soundtrack, especially when ‘The Beloved’ by Sweet Harmony played (at 9:00 minutes).

Fashion look from a movie
Tilda Swinton’s costumes in Orlando. So rich and theatrical. Love the black simple outfit with the pussy-bow. This is the type of outfit I wish I could pull off. This movie makes you dream, and Tilda is sensational.

Thing I bought for under £50
A cherry hair clip from Spitalfields Market to match my bag and nails. I don’t dress in much colour (usually head to toe in black), so I like to lighten my colour palette with fun, playful accessories.

Investment piece I purchased
My dream mirror by Ettore Sottsass. It’s an investment piece that I will never sell. I just love how it lights up my bedroom with a fluorescent pink hue, and it makes any outfit look good.

Irl shop
Atlanis Art Materials, an art supply shop close to London Fields in East London. I love looking at all the different paints, colours and art supplies. When I create custom colours for brands (as I do in my position as Global Makeup Artist at Tom Ford) I like to use paint to create tones and shades to turn into make-up. It feels more authentic to me. They also have a resident cat running around, who is very cute.

Online shop
Anemone Interiors. I love Lia’s store for interiors and furniture. I am moving house soon, and I cannot wait to start my interior project all over again. She has such unique and fun pieces which have been carefully curated from all over the world.

Also Japanese Avant Garde Books. It has an incredible selection of books, many with make-up and body painting inspiration. I recently bought these two.

Fashion item I inherited
A real mink fur coat from the 1980s from my mum.

Fashion item I stole
I used to steal designer handbags from my mum on a weekly basis. She always let me borrow things as she knew I appreciated fashion from a young age so would look after them. For example a tiny Moschino leopard print bag that I still have to this day. It will always remind me of her.

Fashion item I wish I bought
The Autumn/Winter 2014 Prada shearling coat! Still always on the lookout on all the resale websites every week. One day it will be mine.

Fashion item I bought and wish I didn’t
Bottega Veneta mini shearling Jodie pink handbag. A silly little bag which barely fits anything inside it.

Fashion item I lost
I always lose items in my wardrobe, forget I have them, and when I have my annual wardrobe clear-out, I find things I forget about and then get excited and rotate my bags. It is always a nice surprise to find things you ‘lost’ and bring them back out from hiding years later.

Fashion magazine story
Me shot by Tim Walker in i-D ‘Pretty Young Things’ issue, Pre-Fall 2009 when I first moved to London. It was styled by Jacob K. Both are good friends and collaborators to this day.

Person that inspired my teenage style
Leigh Bowery. When I first moved to London in 2008 I was in the East London (Shoreditch) club kid scene and I used images of Leigh from his party days for inspiration.

I was also so inspired by fashion, especially by make-up artist Pat McGrath. I remember using her Viktor & Rolf show look makeup as inspiration one evening. That was a fun one to re-create for me and my friends.

Person whose closet I wish I could raid
Inez van Lamsweerde (From Inez and Vinoodh). I think she always looks effortlessly chic whenever we work together. Jeans and a jumper and trainers, often always with a different Chanel bag draped over her shoulder when she walks around backstage on set. Très chic!

Fashion mistake I made
I have many. The worst being baby pink legwarmers with denim kitten heels and a striped tie.

Fashion item I prize more than any other
My Chanel shearling No.5 Pop Art flap bag. I save it for special occasions, and I get compliments every time I use it.

My go-to everyday make-up look
Raw natural skin, groomed defined brows, smokey brown smudged liner with black clumpy lashes just on the top of my eye – teamed with dewy radiant skin.

Advice I was given about working in the fashion industry
Always be yourself, and be mysterious! We give too much of ourselves away on social media these days. A little bit of mystery is a good thing in a time when people are so obsessed with knowing everything about everyone.

Advice I have about working in the fashion industry
Be a real and honest person. Always keep creating, building trusted relationships and don’t fall into trends of the moment. You want to have a career with longevity, and this takes time and patience.

Outfit that feels like my signature style
Always black, tailored, easy to wear with some fab shoes and a fun designer handbag to finish.

Make-up I wore when I was a teenager
Usually a heavy, cakey base of foundation (probably a few shades too dark) and heavy dark brown or black smokey eyes with a concealed out lip. Not too far off what I do now but less refined and executed badly. That was its charm though!

Subculture
PUNK! Wish I was alive in the 1970s. I am hugely influenced by the punk movement, and I love researching this decade for my work. I am obsessed with Derek Ridgers’ photography from the punk clubs. I got to work with him once, and it will be one of my fondest memories.

Fashion lesson I learned
Work with speed but with accuracy. Working on fashion shoots is fast-paced and stressful. I had to train myself to do makeup quickly yet with perfect technique. I am usually praised for how fast I can work, and the best ideas can come in those frantic moments when changing the makeup in a matter of minutes.

Trend I wish would come back
Liner and lashes from the 1960s! It was such a dramatic make-up style of that era yet it looked so real and effortless. I love this liner and lash look on Penelope Tree – she used to do her make-up herself, which makes it even more incredible.

Source for creative inspiration
My books, which have all been digitised so I have a digital library on my iPad, anywhere I go. Social media and Pinterest are also a part of my creative inspiration. I love finding rare reference visuals and using them as a starting point for my designs.

Trend I wish would disappear
Wearing a foundation that is too far away from your natural skin tone and covers up your skin texture like a mask. I love to see real skin and texture by creating a base in the most flawless yet natural way.

Image I always have on my moodboard
Jane Forth – the colours and tones are so perfect and elegant. It still feels so modern and inspiring all these years later.

Instagram account I follow
boringnotcom. I like the raw honesty of their reviews. No sugar coating. It is refreshing and honest and blunt, and we need more of this in the fashion industry. I sometimes feel people are afraid to critique things in the fashion industry, but how are we expected to grow without this type of feedback?

Substack I read
Bella Freud’s Fashion Neurosis. I love the therapy chair concept for having a good old chitchat. Her guests are always so interesting. I especially loved the Haider Ackermann interview. I love listening to stories and tales from people I worked with in the industry. You really get a deeper understanding of that person, and it helps in the working environment to be on a more personal level.

Moment I knew I wanted to work in the industry
From the age of 12, when I was rummaging through my mum’s collection of Vogue from the 1980s. At the time, I didn’t quite understand what the fashion industry was, but I knew it was something I had to be part of. I feel very lucky that I knew from such an early age what I wanted to do.

Last few screenshots I took
Robert Fairer backstage photography at a Dior show by John Galliano.

This shot of Marina Abramovic.

Rose McDowall from the band ‘Strawberry Switchblade.’

And Richard Burbridge for Vogue Italia.

Tabs I currently have open
Phoebe Philo ‘Small Kit Cabas’ bag. The perfect everyday work bag which I am trying hard not to indulge in. I was on set with Tilda Swinton recently, and she had this bag, and I thought, I HAVE to have it.

The make-up artist Tyen. I worked with Susie Cave recently on a Tom Ford campaign, and she was telling me all about the Dior make-up campaigns she did back in the day with the make-up artist Tyen. This make-up is perfection – so incredibly well done and inspiring. To this day it still looks so modern and elegant.

Forbes and WWD announcing my Tom Ford global makeup artist appointment last October!

Music I listen to when I need to get work done
Yazoo, Erasure, Duran Duran, The Cure, Sade – usually anything from the 1980s.

Snack for late nights in the studio
Homemade protein balls made by my first assistant, Jana.

Item in my backstage survival kit
Hand sanitiser, Muji cotton buds, 8 Hour Crème, Blotting papers, straws, and a flashlight! But I couldn’t live without my tray backstage at fashion week – a platter of make-up which is easily accessible.

Antwerp-based designer Julie Kegels is quickly joining the ranks of the other great Belgian designers that came before her, with collections that demonstrate the unique blend of straightforward functionality, unconventional tailoring, and visual witticisms the fashion of the region is known for, but in her own way.

Following the debut of her Dress Code collection, Kegels took System’s Houssem El Ghoul around her studio to speak through her process, the struggles of being a young designer today and the designs she is most proud of. She also shares her favourite spots in the city to unwind and refresh her creative inspiration when she’s not working in the studio.

System: What does your space reveal about how you work?
Julie Kegels: There is a lot of natural light in our studio. It’s very inspiring during the summer because there is this natural light that you want to play with and use to create something more fresh. During the winter, it’s very dark here, so it’s also [inspiring] to create something more dark and heavy at that time of year.

Everyone is working in the same space– from accounting, e-commerce, to something creative– so everyone is together and sees everything happening at the same time. We’re a very young team, and everyone is working together on this brand in their own way, but when you’re here, you also learn what is going on in every department. I think that can be interesting.

Usually the space is not this clean. You can really let yourself go and create something from scratch. I’m sitting here most of the time with my boards and my little desk, and we actually fit quite a lot of people here every day. As you can see, it’s a very old building. It used to be a warehouse, and you have all these very old details. During the winter it’s super cold, and during the summer very hot, but it’s worth it because we’re so happy to be here with all the space and light.

What conditions do you need in order to produce something meaningful?
I’m very happy to come to the office every day because it gives me a lot of inspiration. The atmosphere is very fruitful.

Which part of the creative process do you find the most difficult?
When something feels forced, I like to try it again. But if it feels forced again, then I leave the idea behind. Maybe the next season it comes again and feels better or more fitting to the whole concept.

What are you working on right now?
Last season there were a lot of ideas and concepts. I think that also has something to do with winter. You’re inside and thinking a lot, bringing ideas together. But now, it’s summer again, and there’s a lot of light. It creates butterflies in the belly.

We’re actually creating something very simple at the moment because I needed that after last season. One idea appears throughout multiple garments, and at this moment it really feels right. It’s very refreshing to focus on that.

What defines your brand today?
Transformation. What’s very important for the brand is that we can all switch between roles throughout the day. You can be a warm mother in the morning, then you go to work, and you’re a businesswoman, and at the end of the day you have to be social and go to a dinner.

I think that’s also something the clothes stand for. There will always be contrasts, and there will always be imperfections.

Can you walk us through some of the pieces around the studio?
This was from the Dress Code collection. It was about how interiors can give you an image of success. It was inspired by a book by Judith Price, in which she says that if you have a layered wooden wall or this kind of chair, combined with this colour of carpet, you can be successful.

I thought it was funny, so we started translating it into garments. This full look is made from upcycled wool blankets. The shoes are layered leather with a wood print inspired by the interiors Judith Price was talking about.

This is a leather bag we made that looks like a cushion. The goal was also to blend into your interior and create cosy moments between days. It’s made in the same leather as our Icon Chair. The Icon Chair is a blend of iconic chairs from design history. We wanted people to think they recognised it, but actually it’s a mix of different chairs in one design.

A piece very close to my heart is this double-layered silk organza with glitter inside. It’s bio glitter. I think it’s also a symbol for the JK woman because she’s always on the go, always on the move. Very transformative, very flexible, but also stubborn at the same time.

We found a lot of vintage photos with lace dresses and lace skirts. At that moment, I was really tired of lace, so we cut out all the lace and kept the negative shape that remained in the garments.

The thong socks started from a sock I had in my archive. It wasn’t beautiful at all. Then we thought about making it more corporate and elegant, and now I wear it every day. Every collection starts from the same pump shoe, but each season we add something different on top of it.

This is our double bag. It has two components. You can keep them together or separate them and organise your belongings.

The boob stickers came from leftover lace after we cut the lace away from garments. I made a collage from the leftover lace, scanned it and printed it onto boob tape. For me, it’s actually a replacement for a bra without all the technical parts.

How do you reconcile creative intent with commercial pressure?
At the beginning of the process, I just let myself go and don’t think about commercial theories or anything. But I’m very lucky to have Mauranne [Ricaille] in the team, who looks at the merchandising plan. At the end we’re checking if there are enough dresses, enough skirts, enough jersey and whether there is a balance in the collection. In the beginning it’s very important to be free and follow your heart and your gut, but of course we also use merchandising.

What has changed most in the way you work since you started?
When we start a collection, I first talk with [design director] Philemon Hahlweg, my best friend, about how we feel or about things that we just experienced. It can be something that inspires you at the supermarket or at an exhibition. Then we collect all kinds of research material. It can be a vintage garment, a visual, a movie or an artwork. We talk and talk and talk, and then we have a story. We want to be honest with that story and follow it.

Then we translate it into garments and do a lot of try-outs. Experimentation is very important in the process, and also serendipity. When you see something and your heart goes faster, then you know.

I work with a lot of people that I know from the Academy here in Antwerp. I’ve known them for a long time. In the beginning, we were working in the living room of my parents. It was [my associate and right-hand woman] Mauranne Ricaille and me. Already being here is such a big change. It’s another atmosphere, more people, and that makes a huge difference.

Are there places in Antwerp that have become part of your routine?
I often go to a cathedral in Antwerp that is a short walk from my studio. I pass by there a lot with my sister to burn a candle and wish for some luck. For example, before a show, we go there, burn a candle and hope for good weather.

And Café Corso. It’s at the Vrijdagmarkt in Antwerp, and it’s a café where I love to come. It feels very raw, but they have the best beer on earth.

The river is a place where I come quite a lot in Antwerp because I just love it. It has something very raw and very grey, which gives you the inspiration to go outside, create something with your hands and dream.

What kind of future are you building towards, realistically?
We’re still a young, very small team. There is so much that we have to do every day and only 24 hours in a day. It would be amazing to have more helping hands, but for me it’s a dream what we’re doing now, and I hope to continue building the brand the way we are building it at the moment.

What does success look like to you now, compared to before?
I think being very confident in what you’re doing and being true and honest to yourself while creating and also building a brand. That’s what success is to me.

Alex Baddeley, fashion specialist and auctioneer at Kerry Taylor Auctions

System: This auction was curated by Martin Margiela himself. Does that change the way we should look at these objects?
Alex Baddeley: Usually, an exhibition or an auction is shaped by a curator trying to do justice to a collection. Here, everything has been selected, curated and installed by Martin himself. It isn’t simply an auction. The entire exhibition can be understood as an art installation.

This project actually began after an exhibition and auction we organised last year, bringing together some of the rarest early Maison Margiela pieces. It became the most successful fashion auction ever held in France at the time.

We reached out to Martin afterwards, hoping we had done justice to his work, and that’s how this collaboration began. What fascinates me most isn’t necessarily what Martin kept, but why he kept it. Rather than preserving the clothes themselves, he preserved the ideas behind them: sketches, prototypes, invitations, photographs, and show ephemera. Looking through the archive, you begin to understand how he thinks, rather than simply what he made.

You worked closely with Martin on this project. Did anything about the way he approached his own archive surprise you?
Martin has always played with anonymity. He created the blank label with the four stitches so people would focus on the clothes rather than the name.

Ironically, those four stitches became one of the most recognisable signatures in fashion. The same happened with the voile masks. At a time when everyone wanted to celebrate the supermodel, Martin wanted people to look at the clothes instead. The masks themselves became iconic.

What’s remarkable is that this archive contains many deeply personal objects, yet it still reveals very little about Martin himself. That tension has always been part of his work.

Throughout his career, he constantly challenged expectations. To become the first living designer to curate his own auction in this way feels completely true to him. To me, it almost feels like his final intervention in fashion.

If you had to save two lots from this sale, which ones would you choose, and what do they say about Martin Margiela that the others don’t?
The first would be the painted Tabi boots. They were originally exhibited at the Palais Galliera, where visitors were invited to write on the gallery walls. Instead, they started writing directly on the boots, and Martin loved that unexpected reaction. While cataloguing them, I turned one over and realised someone had written my own name on the back. I’d only ever seen them photographed from one angle before, so it became a very personal moment.

The second would be Martin’s white blouse. It’s covered with traces of paint, ink and years of work. Seeing it hanging there without the designer wearing it perfectly captures the spirit of the blank label. His presence is everywhere, even in his absence.

Martin Margiela has spent decades protecting his anonymity. What does it mean that he’s now choosing to reveal his archive?
I don’t think Martin is revealing himself as much as he’s revealing the consistency of his ideas. Throughout his career, he always designed with the wearer in mind. He never wanted to objectify women or create clothes that belonged to a single moment. At Hermès, he designed garments that could be worn season after season, repeating silhouettes in different fabrics and colours so they would never feel out of date.

Even the smallest details reflect that philosophy. The only visible branding appears on certain buttons, where six stitches subtly form an ‘H’ – a world away from the overt branding that defined luxury in the late 1990s. The cashmere gloves are knitted entirely without seams, so they can be worn inside out or either way around and still feel perfect. It’s a very discreet idea of luxury, entirely rooted in craftsmanship and wearability.

Looking through the archive, you also realise how consistently Martin returned to the same ideas. His earliest shoe designs, his original drawings, the miniature mannequins he used to explore proportion, the painted Bianchetto garments and the Hermès collections all belong to the same conversation. Rather than constantly inventing something new, he kept refining the same ideas throughout his career.

One of the most moving sections of the exhibition is dedicated to the wardrobe of Martin’s mother, Lea Bouchert. While he was designing at Hermès, she became an important point of reference for the way he thought about clothing. The garments are incredibly luxurious but deliberately understated, designed to be worn by anyone rather than to signal status.

Some of those designs, like the Double Tour watch, are still in production today, which says a great deal about the strength of his vision. Others reveal his fascination with layering: instead of a twin set, he imagined a three-piece cashmere set that could be worn in multiple ways, or doubled coats made from two identical garments fastened together at the back.

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They’re deeply luxurious objects, but they never lose sight of function. That’s what makes Martin’s work feel so relevant today. He wasn’t interested in novelty for its own sake. He was interested in refining ideas until they became timeless.

Bob Verhelst, Curator of the Exhibition

You worked very closely with Martin Margiela from the very beginning. Can you tell us about your role and what it has been like working alongside him over the years?
I met Martin at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. We studied together in the fashion department and when he started the house, I offered to help.

During the first eight years of Maison Margiela, I worked on everything. We organised the shows, the exhibitions, even stamped the invitations. We did everything together, so we know each other very well. Since then, every time Martin works on a new project or an exhibition, we work together again.

I have previously worked on the exhibition Maison Martin Margiela ‘20’ at MoMu and the Margiela, the Hermès Years exhibition in Antwerp, which later travelled to Paris and Stockholm. Now I’m working on this project.

Working with Martin is very easy because we’ve known each other for so long. We only need to exchange a few words to understand each other. I understand his language, he knows the way I work, so everything feels very natural. I know the house and its spirit so well that installing an exhibition like this comes naturally.

How did you approach the scenography for this exhibition, and what were the first conversations you had with Martin?
Every exhibition starts the same way. We first visit the space, then decide how to organise it. Here, we wanted to clearly separate the Maison Margiela years from the Hermès years.

The idea was to reconstruct Martin’s office and archive by printing them onto canvas. The large table was conceived as if we had simply opened boxes from the archive and laid everything out. It was meant to feel natural and organic. The Hermès section, on the other hand, belongs to a completely different world, so it required a different approach.

Was there one piece or one object that brought back a particularly strong memory while putting the exhibition together?
One piece that always stays with me is the pair of Tabi boots covered in graffiti. During the exhibition at the Palais Galliera, everything was white – the garments, the shoes – and we left markers for visitors to write messages to Martin.

After four months, every surface was completely covered with graffiti and messages. It’s something I’ve never forgotten. We recently recreated the same idea for another exhibition at MoMu, and once again people immediately started writing on them. I think they’re still one of the most beautiful pieces.

As Milan Design Week was winding down, System escaped the city’s restless bustle and headed to the Milanese countryside, where Milano Fashion Library has made its home inside an old industrial building. What began as the personal project of its founder, Diego Valisi, is now one of the largest archives of its kind in the world. With more than 80,000 magazines and lookbooks, it’s a faithful mirror of the fashion publishing industry, from the mid-19th century to today.

System’s Ludovica Tauro Cortina sat down with Diego to discuss how the project came to life: the years spent as a publisher at L’Uomo Vogue, the decision to sell his own publishing house, and his thoughts on the future of print.

System: I’m curious to know why you started this archive?
Diego Valisi: Like most people who accumulate things, the beginning was quite empirical. My whole life was spent within the fashion publishing industry: first at a German publishing house, then at Condé Nast, where I served as the publisher of L’Uomo Vogue, Vogue Sport, and Vogue Tessuti, which back in the day were autonomous publications, and, finally, another 10 years as an independent publisher. Around 2018 I sold the company to an investment fund.

Alongside all those years in publishing, I started accumulating material, partly for professional reasons and partly out of personal passion, as I was travelling a great deal. Back in the day, personal relations were a big thing. At Condè Nast, every six months I had to visit our offices in Paris, London, and New York, and on those professional trips I would carve out time to pick up things that simply weren’t available in Italy.

By the end, this led to an archive of around 20,000 to 25,000 publications. Since they were not tied to the sale of the company, I kept them and began wondering what I could do with them. During the long months of the first lockdown, with little else to occupy me, I reflected on the fact that this collection – while already significant in relative terms – was still woefully insufficient compared to other publicly accessible fashion archives around the world, and far short of what I actually wanted to build.

Just a few days ago, we surpassed 80,000 titles, which in my view is still not enough. And it’s not only magazines. There is also a section dedicated to brand catalogues and lookbooks, which are often objects of extraordinary editorial quality. All the great houses have tried their hand at being their own publishers, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s when they produced incredible material.

If we look at a Versace catalogue from that era, for example, it might be shot by Bruce Weber. These were monumental shoots, magnificent photography books self-published and self-edited by the brand, and they are far rarer than any magazine. While magazines once had print runs you wouldn’t believe today – four out of five publishers now produce 3,000 copies, whereas back then they might print 150,000, so statistically copies have survived on the market – the Dolce & Gabbana lookbook from 1982, for instance, , is extraordinarily rare. It was printed in a run of 500 and distributed only to buyers and press who then discarded most of them within minutes.

What are most people coming to the archive for?
Our best-known role is our private library, where we host major international style offices from big fashion brands, who pay annual membership fees to access the archive and study publications unavailable anywhere else. We also have the vintage bookshop which is primarily online, where we sell these titles.

But the real business revolves around ancillary services: image research for the most varied purposes (photography exhibitions, book content), involvement in brand acquisitions and sales by reconstructing the history of the brand being bought or sold, and lastly a great deal of work in disputes between brands over copyright. All of this flows from a single source. The uniqueness of this archive and the impossibility of finding this body of material anywhere else.

Which, at this point, is not fully digitised, right?
It is not digitised at all. The first digital initiatives will appear by the end of this year, and they are entirely distinct from the archival material. The first is a series of technical e-books for the fashion community. The e-book on Margiela will illustrate what his catalogues looked like, his brand communication, the merchandising that accompanied the product – a highly professional and technical perspective, distributed exclusively digitally.

The second initiative concerns digitisation of the material itself, but not starting from the printed publications. We have acquired an archive of 12,000 photo-CDs. For at least a decade, as brand investment in printed catalogues began to decline, these were replaced by CD-ROMs or DVDs containing product images, brand communications, or runway footage. We will begin there, creating a members-only area on the site, with AI-driven indexing to enable retrieval of the material.

Digitising the physical archive, on the other hand, is an enormously complex undertaking: 80,000 publications at an average of 180 pages each, and every page must be scanned and indexed. It’s a bit of a time-consuming activity for the small team we have now.

Shifting to the magazine industry more broadly: how have you seen the role of printed magazines change throughout the years you spent in the industry?
The number of publications has declined catastrophically. Back when I started, there were years, especially over the 1980s and 1990s, when you couldn’t keep count of the titles being launched, by structured publishers, independents, or publishers from other sectors entirely. It was always harder than it looked, but the advertising money was there.

Bear in mind that a periodical in its prime years generated 75% of its revenue from advertising and 25% from copy sales. The moment advertising collapsed, both in terms of quantity but also cost-per-page, the economics no longer worked. Now advertising revenue has fallen off a cliff, and copy sales have fallen even further.

To give you an idea: Italy had 45,000 newsagents in the 1990s, and they all thrived because the newsagent model runs entirely on sale-or-return: no inventory to finance, the retailer keeps around 25% with no staff or management costs. Despite this virtuous structure, more than half of those newsagents have closed.

One thing I’ve noticed is that, despite everything you’ve described, if you walk into certain independent stores, there are always new independent magazine launches on the shelves every day, even if the print runs must be very small.
That impression exists because it’s not a geographically grounded one. All the titles you’re talking about are stateless publications. One is made in Paris, one in Milan, one in Oslo, another in Copenhagen, and you see them all together. To get a true sense of how many active titles exist, you have to look at individual markets. This phenomenon didn’t exist before, partly because it didn’t work commercially. You built a magazine with a distribution primarily on your domestic market. When you went to Levi’s Italy to ask for advertising, Levi’s would say: “I’m interested in the Italian market; I’m not going to buy space to benefit Levi’s America.” Consequently, magazines were mostly local.

Now, since the money isn’t there anymore, they’ve gone stateless. When you pitch for advertising, you say ‘This is a specialist title read by the most passionate fashion followers and the top international buyers, and you can reach the entire global community with a single page’. However, you don’t penetrate any market in depth. When you walk into those shops, you have the impression there are many magazines because you see two Danish titles, four British ones, one Italian, three French, and you think, ‘There are 30 independent magazines.’ What used to be produced in one region in Italy is now produced across the world.

Was there a precise moment when you felt a shift in the role of magazines?
It wasn’t a steady curve. When I was at Condé Nast, at a certain point it was felt that the future would look like what we’re living through now, so it wasn’t that nobody saw it coming.

The awareness existed 15 to 20 years ago, but the curve was extremely slow and for a long time digital looked like a bubble: you kept putting money in, people looked at it, but no one advertised and it was pure loss.

I believe this slow, steady curve accelerated with e-commerce, which took off well before digital advertising revenues did, and then the quantum leap was Covid. The first lockdown. That found a press already in difficulty, keeping the books balanced through creative accounting, and it was the final blow.

Only those with no fixed costs have survived, because they are the real problem. If one issue costs me €30,000 to produce and I can project €50,000 in advertising revenue, but if the issue is bimonthly or quarterly, I still have to pay the whole team every month even when I’m not publishing. That structure is no longer sustainable for the long term.

And so the ones that survive today look like this: small print runs, zero fixed costs, meticulous control of variable costs, stateless distribution, and a coffee-table-book aesthetic, with a genuine promise to the advertiser that their communication endures over time and is well targeted through a carefully selected distribution. It is a role of aesthetic positioning.

Which titles are most requested and studied in the archive today? And what does that tell you, in your view, about the priorities of people working in fashion now?
The most requested titles are the institutional ones: the various editions of Vogue, above everything else. I’d struggle to name a clear second name, though.

However, no one has come to look at an issue of Vogue from two months ago. The most sought-after, consulted, and purchased title is unquestionably Vogue, and primarily the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.

Who is the primary audience coming here today?
Design and communications departments, and at the beginning I was very surprised about this. We have a penetration of virtually 100%, and I say this with genuine astonishment, among the great houses. There is not a single major Italian, French, American, Swiss, or Spanish brand that does not have a consistent presence here. When they visit, we then handle the logistics as well, because as you can see we’re in the middle of nowhere: design offices arrive from Paris, we put them up at the agriturismo next door because they don’t even go into Milan, and they spend three days building the moodboard that will inspire the next collection. Within the companies, 70% are design departments and 30% marketing and communications, yet they come for the same purpose: the visual research to create collections or campaigns.

And students? Very few?
Very few. The students think Google will solve the problem.

How does the quality of attention change when looking at a printed magazine compared to its digital version? And why do people from design departments prefer analogue research?
It’s not a question of format. I don’t believe people actually prefer leafing through a printed magazine over viewing its digital edition online. The truth is far simpler. I estimate that 40% of what we have here cannot be found online. That’s all it is. They come here and discover magazines that had 20 years of extraordinary success and whose very existence they were unaware of. And even if they had happened to know of them, there is often nothing online, because if a title died before Google was born, no one ever bothered to upload it.

Where do you see the future of this archive? With the development of the digital, how does one preserve the physical?
I believe the two will exist in parallel. The appeal of the physical archive is entirely different from that of a digital one. Looking ahead, the evolution is to engage the professional world through digital, and to function also as a place where things happen, physically.

Because in the end, when a tendency reaches an extreme, the counter-tendency immediately emerges. Digital is fundamental now, as an extension of our core business. Someone in Sydney cannot come here every day, and since we do things that person in Sydney cares about, I need to communicate with them, and I can only do so digitally. That is one dimension.

But have you ever seen as many advertising campaigns shot in bookshops as you do right now? These are genuinely intriguing signals. I have never seen so many advertising campaigns set inside disordered archives, or a twenty-year-old influencer photographed in the act of reading a book.

That calls back to the analogue, to the beginning.
Absolutely. So what I see in the future of this project is, of course, an enormous digital development targeting the professional market to extend our reach, and also significant development of the physical site, because here we’re running out of space. We will certainly be moving to a much larger space, which will become a venue for events because brands want to be present here with their product placement too.

Another very clear direction of development is that our social media channels will soon become editorial platforms. Why wouldn’t you place advertising on our Instagram profile, where we’re growing organically and where brands can find a very targeted audience?

That is the advantage of having genuinely good content: you’re not selling a story.
Exactly. Finding content is never a struggle for us.

Having seen the future of this place, what is the future of print?
The future of print will increasingly be either the role of lifestyle object containing excellence, or it will continue as the kind of thing you find at the hairdresser’s, at a lower price and wider circulation.

So today, in your view, are magazines more of a mirror of contemporary culture, or producers of it? Do they reflect it, or do they create it?
They reflect it. They reflect it, and they must be able to become comfortable containers for certain categories of brands, positioning them in appropriate environments, in front of appropriate audiences, and performing that function. They cannot exercise a strictly critical role anymore.

So what should we expect in the near future?
The thing we’re envisioning now for the future is a fashion publishing fair. The world has some beautiful fairs dedicated to independent publishing, but there is nothing strictly on fashion, where the exhibitors can be the publishers themselves.

There will be publishers, specialist bookshops, our competitors from around the world, but also private collectors. The material exhibited won’t be limited to magazines or books: if you’re a Comme des Garçons collector and instead of the clothes you have every Comme des Garçons publication, perhaps you’d enjoy exhibiting them.

There will be a pure sales component with small exhibitor stands. But inside there will also be photography exhibitions, workshops on where communication in publishing is heading: an experiential element, partly glamour and partly education.

In Milan? In Italy?
In Italy, certainly. There are two competing theories at the moment, but we can talk about that another time.

Located in London’s De Beauvoir neighbourhood, Studio Nocturne is a ‘purveyor of spells, books and art objects,’ that has quickly become a gathering place for the city’s creatives. Its unique collection of rare first editions, artworks and ‘delightful, deviant publications,’ offers a new source of inspiration for the algorithm-weary, while its programme of events have included a book signing with the stylist Camille Bidault Waddington; a launch party for Tallulah Harlech’s skinwear brand Sylva; and an exhibition by Jenny McIlhatton, who transforms fashion waste into textile art.

Before launching Studio Nocturne, founder Flora Gau was a curator at the ALAÏA bookshop. The shop’s stock is informed by the same fashion and fine art sensibility, but combined with Gau’s penchant for the esoteric, unexpected and strange. ‘It feels very personal,’ she says. ‘It’s all my friends, people I know, things I love. That sense of community is really important to me. That’s why I wanted to keep the name studio. I don’t call it a shop or a gallery. For me, it’s a place to be inspired, a place where I also work and my artist friends use too.’

Below, she takes System through some of her favourite books in the space now.

The Park by Kohei Yoshiyuki

This is a first edition from 1980; it’s so rare I never thought I’d have the chance to have it here. Kohei Yoshiyuki took these photographs throughout the 1970s in a park that was known as a spot for people to hook up, but also where people would go to watch them. So the book is a document of the lovers, as well as the Peeping Toms.

What I love about it is that because the photos were taken with an infrared camera, which gives the subjects this lightbeam quality, they almost look like angels. So it keeps the images from feeling creepy; they feel quite tender in a way.

Fotocopie by Maurizio Berlincioni

This book was made in the 1980s by the Italian artist Maurizio Berlincioni. He spent a few months asking his friends to come sit on this couch, and then you can flip through either side of the book and pair them with different people.

It’s so clever. I really love having books like this here, so that every time people come here, they can discover new things. Because these types of things inspire me like crazy. I look at them and think, "Why hasn't this been done before? Why does nobody know about this?"

Bibun/Differentiation by Kishin Shinoyama

This is a real cult object from 1984. It’s a flipbook that shows actress Nakamura writhing around on one side, and fingering her armpit on the page opposite, in a very inventive attempt to circumnavigate Japan’s censorship laws that ends up becoming something else completely.

This was Vol. 13 of the 44-volume ‘The Weekly Fluctuant Book’ series published by the Asahi Publishing Company in Tokyo. I asked my friend Paul Lawrence from November, who knows everything about books, if he could find out more about the publication, and he told me the other issues focused on totally different topics, things like baseball, nothing like this. Which, in my opinion, makes this even more strange and interesting.

Love, Sex and Astrology by Terri King

I’ve had a few copies of these, and they’re always really popular. Terri King was a big astrologer in the 1970s, and this book is designed to help you find your perfect partner based on your astrological sign.

It’s filled with so many funny compatibility charts, illustrations and lists for each sign and their characteristics. But it's also kind of problematic and outdated. For instance, I’m a Capricorn, and there is a section where she describes what a Capricorn woman looks like, and it’s just awful, like they have greasy hair and puffy faces. She was definitely wronged by a Capricorn in the past.

Good Night by Lin You

Lin was born in 2003 in Shenzhen but now lives in Brooklyn. Every copy of this book is different because it’s hand-ripped in a different place. It’s filled with photographs, illustrations, and found media created/collected over three months as when she was 20 years old and visiting Europe.

I think the book summary explains it best: ‘Good Night was the unexpected result of a repressed yearning to escape and belong, features remixed “poetry” from medicinal Chinese wine pamphlets found on the ground, post-club self-portraits taken in the shower, and London’s DIY scene, amongst reinterpreted subjects and fragments tracing back to childhood.’

Andree Putman: A Designer Apart

This is one of my favourite books ever. Andree Putman was a French interior designer, a little older, very flashy and a bit over the top for her time. But she introduced a lot of important ideas.

People sometimes find this book a bit challenging; they don’t always respond to the aesthetic right away. But I love the 1980s decadence of her design, I think it has real personality.

Husband Material by Anna Choutova

Anna was having a show at Miłość Gallery down the street, and I went and bought two of these books. They immediately sold out, and when I got more, those immediately sold out as well.

I love her work and her sensibility. On the opening page the book is dedicated to ‘my great-grandmother, who single-handedly kept my family alive in Nazi-occupied Russia. She also taught me that it was unexpected for a woman to have one boyfriend at a time.’

She also loves cigarettes, which I think is great. There are cigarettes all over this book.

Robert Mapplethorpe, edited by Richard Marshall

This is from 1988, and its publication coincided with a major retrospective of Mapplethorpe’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It’s filled with all these amazing Mapplethorpe photographs from the beginning of his career in the 1970s up until around the end of his career, as he died in 1989, a year after the exhibition took place. But what really makes it special is that Patti Smith has signed it on the page with a portrait he shot of her in 1978.

Two Hours Ago I Fell In Love edited by Alice Minervini

This is a zine edited by the Italian artist Alice Minervini. Its subtitle is ‘Deconstructing Fascist Imaginary on Sex, Love and Gender,’ and I love that it has this pink cover and kind of romantic title, and then you read the text on the bottom and realise it’s quite serious.

It’s meant to document a festival of the same name that took place in a former fascist building in Rimini, Italy, and includes essays and art from a bunch of contributors who think about how the fascist history in Italy and elsewhere has shaped the way we think about love, sex and gender.

Wet Anthology

We just got this in, and I’m so excited about it. It’s an anthology of queer and trans writing about water, which asks ten different artists to respond to water creatively, and they’ve created poems, drawings, and all kinds of things.

The contributors are Arlo Kean, Clara Davis, Elliot Waloschek, Finn Brown, Isabella Redmayne, Lizze Rose, Lucie Arnoux, So Mayer, Tadhg Haran, Tallulah Griffith, and Troy Cabida. I can tell you know it’s going to be the perfect mermaid read of the summer.

Florence’s Polimoda Institute rounds out System’s tour of Europe’s most prestigious fashion schools. Like the students at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Arts and La Cambre Mode(s), Polimoda’s graduating class presented a diverse range of collections, each with its own distinct aesthetic and inspirations. Below, System’s Houssem El Ghoul speaks to Lucie and Luke Meier, former creative directors of Jil Sander and mentors for the class of 2026; Massimiliano Giornetti, director of Polimoda and former creative director of Salvatore Ferragamo; and the students about what they learned during their time at the school.

Evelina Kryvopust, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is called ‘Une’, which in French means “one.” The collection takes inspiration from the film The Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke from 2001. It’s a film about a woman who seems really simple and classy and modest at first glance, but throughout the film we discover that she has certain perversions. The beginning of the collection was trying to talk about this feeling of giving us something quite simple, and then throughout the way we watch the collection, we see a second meaning.

Is there any detail people might miss?
Probably the bag, specifically the handle. From the front it looks like a normal handle, but when you reverse it, you can see the whole bag is suspended just by garter holders.

Is there a piece that best represents the collection?
The piece that best represents the collection for me are the barely-there shoes I created. They feature a five-centimetre heel made in python, with basically no construction. The main thing about a shoe is that it covers your feet, so depending on who wears it, the shoe looks different. That’s the most personal part about it.

It represents the collection the most: the idea of this woman who was very modest, but actually into BDSM. The sheerness is the modest part of her, and the python is actually quite strong. I pair it with this huge coat that gives the idea that she’s fully dressed, but because of the shoe, it feels like she’s fully naked underneath.

Emilie Wenckstern, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is called ‘No Longer Human’. When I started this collection, I was inspired by how so many faces and bodies are generated, edited, and exist before the real physical presence does. So, I got inspired by dolls, mannequins, and artificial figures of today, and mixed these together with these Renaissance ladies that were plucking out their hairlines and eyebrows to look as less human as possible.

I wanted to see the body more as an object that is being built, where different parts are coming together. That’s why I have a lot of crackling and weird shapes; it suggests some of the flaws of becoming human.

Can you tell us more about the techniques you used in this collection?
To create the crackling pieces, I made many layers of paint, cracked them, then added a varnish on top.

What did you appreciate most about Polimoda?
What I really like about Polimoda and why I think it’s good for young designers is because quality is very much valued here. It’s really about having the best outcome possible without cutting on creativity: combining both to have creative pieces that are also made very well.

Anson Lorence Lin, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is called ‘Packages’ and it started by looking at the unglamorous side of fashion: the backstage. There, I find beauty in the models still wrapped in bathrobes, still with pins in their hair – all the little details that talk about beauty in the making.

From there, I looked at one of my favourite artists of all time, Cy Twombly. Cy Twombly was living in Rome for a long time, and you can just imagine this American man surrounded by a city full of beautiful marble sculptures. Yet he decides to take a bunch of wooden blocks and panels and put them together and say, ‘This is my sculpture.’ I quite like that there’s an unglamorous side to his work. From there I connected everything to my favourite part of fashion, which is the pattern making and the really technical side of making garments.

What are some of your favourite details from the collection?
I put a lot of effort into the inside of the garment, because for me that’s the most personal part: the part you touch, the part you wear, the part where you access the pockets.

Can you tell us more about the techniques you used in this collection?
One technique that runs throughout the collection is bonding. I had an internship during the summer, and a professor mentor who had long conversations with me about bonding and the beauty of dual fabrics, how you can put one thing and another together and it can be extremely beautiful. I made a suede peacoat with an extended collar; suede wouldn’t normally carry this much structure, but I bonded it to silk. So on the inside it’s a fully bonded jacket without lining, but because of the silk you have ease and access.

This same story appears in other garments, like a shirt with a printed flower, onto which I added three-dimensional suede and silk flowers to give a 3D effect. The print is there, and then the flower emerges from it, making it come alive.

Victor Brial, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
The starting point for my collection was my hometown of Réunion, France. I was thinking about a traveller character who would go there and I was interested in his point of view and what objects and traditions he would be drawn to. So I explored the wardrobe of a contemporary traveller and also wanted to have these inspirations from nature and all the different textures.

The piece that I think represents my collection the most is this bomber jacket that has two layers. It represents the mix I wanted to show – something more embroidered, embellished, and enriched, paired with a very strong inner layer in nylon that’s a little more sportswear. It represents the balance I was trying to find throughout the collection.

What are some of your favourite details from the collection?
For a detail I’m really proud of: I made a knitwear sweater in jacquard, and the inside – which doesn’t really show when worn – has all these fringes that are basically just the inside of the pattern. I think it’s super beautiful that it’s hidden. I like having something that stays just between me and the garment.

Another detail I’m also really happy with is that I developed necklaces for each one of the models. There are six different types of necklaces, and each guy has a different accessory. You don’t always see them when the models walk, but I love having that kind of detail.

The idea behind it was to create pendants that go with the traveller concept, imagining that he could find something along the way, like pearls or beads, and just add them to his necklace, making them into a kind of good luck sign. It was really fun to make.

Matilde Terranova, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is a menswear collection about a group of teenagers who live in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. They’re stuck in a loop of boredom; there’s nothing to do, and they want to escape. So they start to play a role-playing game where they pretend to be the outlaws and bad boys they see on television. The game they play tries to melt the reality where they live with the reality they create in the game.

With my garments, I wanted to mix something more traditional with something more abstract, and I also wanted to play with the thickness of fabric and draping. The thickness and material speaks to the harsh side of these bad guys, while the drape brings in something lighter, something less sure of itself.

What are some of your favourite details from the collection?
I have these little leather accessories you can play with: you can wear them as a necklace, on the belt loop of the pants, or on the jacket. The idea was that you can play with the collection and all the looks however you want, particularly with accessories.

The bags come in three colours, black, white, and green, and you can mix them however you want. It goes with this idea of men escaping reality, having this little playful thing that you see but don’t really see.

Diana Avetisian, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is called ‘Another Role’, and the starting point was the David Lynch film Lost Highway. The collection is about an actress who has lost her true self in between the roles she’s performing; she’s stuck between reality and performance. The audience expects a certain image from her, a polished diva, but she doesn’t necessarily feel that way. At some point, with all these constant attempts to fit those roles, she feels herself as a mechanic trying to fix herself in order to fit into society. So I have this contrast between chic diva elements and mechanical uniform, utilitarian elements in my collection.

Do you have a favourite piece from the collection?
The piece I want to talk about is this coat, which is a tailored coat in a yellow, very thick gabardine. It was very difficult to handle and stitch, but now it looks great. It really represents my collection because from one side it’s a tailored, very chic diva piece. But if you look at the lower part of the garment, there’s this print of a crushed car, with Preciosa crystals applied on top.

We’re doing a collaboration with Preciosa, they gave us all the crystals according to our projects. So it’s crystals on top of a crushed car surface. The crystals are chic, and the crushed car is this feeling of, yes, she’s a diva, but she’s not just a diva.

Francesca Valivano, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection starts from the feeling of being in a world that always wants something more, always expecting new ideas, always running. I represent the feeling of being frozen in time, being stuck with things. Through the metaphor of chess and frozen pieces, I represent this idea of feeling emotionally stuck and frozen.

Is there any look that best represents your collection?
The look that represents this idea most is almost every one of them, because I tried to represent this idea of falling, garments that are falling but frozen.

Like this dress: it’s a normal dress, but there’s a shirt that appears to be falling, giving the idea of being frozen but stuck.

Jing Jirat Jitdee, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is about a group of guys who move from the countryside into Bangkok, inspired by my parents who immigrated into the city. The clothes bring out memories and references they would have grown up with, like vintage posters, which there are a lot of in the collection. The garments draw on the iconography of historical Thai clothes, but also contemporary styles, with this whole out-of-period, out-of-time thing: they move into the city thinking what they brought is still chic, but they stand out.

Is there any look that best represents your collection?
This jacket has two really large embroideries I worked with through a sponsorship from Ricamo Garziano Ricami, a company based in Italy that does embroidery for a lot of houses. I got that connection through Lucy Meyer, one of our mentors.

The piece is made with a cotton-linen, a really light material that defines the whole summery vibe of Thailand. It’s a constructed jacket but still really soft, so it keeps this draped silhouette. The back pops out a bit. I have this kicking movement in the collection across all the pants, and this is the jacket that has that movement in it. It’s my favourite piece.

The coat represents these men who left the countryside and came to the big city. They would arrive with one suit, this suit that they’d wear to apply for jobs or work anywhere. It’s light and easy.

Isabel Antonia Richter, Student

What was the inspiration behind this collection?
My collection is called ‘Simulation’. It’s about how we live between the digital and physical world a lot nowadays, how fast-paced our rhythm of life is, and how we sometimes want to step out of that. A big inspiration for this was the gas station; you can just get in the car and leave in an instant, change location fast, and be completely autonomous in where you want to be.

This dress is inspired by the car wash at a gas station, that rotary device that turns so quickly and has all these plastic fringes. I wanted to create that feeling in a dress. I really love the movement: when the model walks, you get this idea of plastic fringes moving. It turned out really beautiful, and I think it represents this idea of looking at the gas station and interpreting it in a completely new way.

I also worked on these screen shapes on the jackets, wanting to create the feeling of a simulation or a projection. From far away, you might think the pockets are real, but when you get closer, it’s actually embossed leather. From far we might think it’s a regular garment, and when you get closer, you realise you’re not looking at something real, the same as when we look at our screens every day.

The idea was to create a new kind of bomber with that screen shape in the front, adding details you’d normally find on a bomber but not actually having them be there. Even the usual stitched patch detail, I really worked hard to get that embossing with the leather stitching on top so it looks very real from far away. On the runway, you won’t notice it until the last second. But yes, there are functional pockets.

Massimiliano Giornetti, Director of Polimoda and former creative director, Salvatore Ferragamo

Looking back at your time as a student, is there a memory or lesson that has stayed with you?
Like every student, I had doubts. We all did. I didn’t come from a fashion family, and at times I questioned whether I belonged in that world. In Italy, connections often seem like the most important thing. What my teachers helped me understand was that the question isn’t whether you have doubts.

The question is how you channel your creativity and where you choose to take it. There is space for everybody in fashion. There are many different careers beyond becoming a designer: product development, merchandising, communication and countless other roles within the industry.

Lucie and Luke Meier, Polimoda student mentors and former creative directors, Jil Sander

What did you hope to pass on to the students as mentors?
Luke Meier: We tried to be truthful. School is very different from the professional world. On one hand, this is one of the few moments in a designer’s life when they can be completely free creatively. It’s a time to push ideas as far as possible, to develop an aesthetic and a point of view.

At the same time, we wanted to give them a sense of what comes next-whether they start their own brand or join an established house-and help them understand the demands of the industry, from making strong garments to developing their skills.

Lucie Meier: We weren’t harsh. Our role was really to guide them and help them find the right direction. Sometimes they were receptive, sometimes less so, but I think they appreciated having an outside perspective.

Fashion show I didn’t attend
John Galliano Spring/Summer 1994 or Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2006 with the hologram of Kate Moss.

Fashion look from a movie
Scarlett Johansson in the opening of Lost in Translation.

Vintage find
I love this sun-bleached pink nylon Prada bag I got on eBay. Not sure how old it is, but it feels weathered due to its literal sun-weathering.

Fashion item I inherited
Jewellery from my grandmother and my mother. I feel they’re very amuletic. I try to wear something, usually a ring, from each of the core women in my life (mom, grandmother, sister) when I want to feel strong.

Fashion item I lost
My leopard fur coat from high school.

Person that inspired my teenage style
Margot Tenenbaum.

Person that inspires my current style
My mom!

Fashion mistake I made
Not wearing heels when I was younger because I’m tall.

Outfit I wore when I was a teenager
My prom dress, which was a white lace boho princess gown with huge winged sleeves. I wore it with a gold and pearl headpiece.

Outfit that made me fall in love with someone
My British ex getting a crazy costume made by his set designer friend for a medieval party we went to when we first started seeing each other.

Outfit that feels like my signature style
Something a little sexy and romantic like the convertible Norma Kamali dress.

In its 40 years, La Cambre Mode(s), the fashion design department of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre in Brussels, has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most prestigious fashion schools. To mark the anniversary, the school assembled a jury of distinguished alumni to judge its graduating students’ annual end-of-year show.

Titled ‘SHOW OFF 26’, the presentation featured the work of eight students from around the world, each reflecting their unique vision of the world and fashion’s place within it.

Following the show, System’s Houssem El Ghoul spoke to this year’s graduating class and some of the jury, which included Matthieu Blazy, Anthony Vaccarello, Nicolas Di Felice, and more.

Student: Adrien van Nuffel d’Heynsbroeck

Can you tell us about your collection and how your experience at La Cambre has helped create your fashion world?
My collection is mainly based on old fashion books from the 1950s and earlier. I tried to reinterpret what I saw in them, especially the folded clothes and the feeling of something old and preserved through time.

I was also interested in the presence of paper on the pages alongside the garments. From there, I challenged myself to make clothes using paper and to create an image from those references.

I think La Cambre is one of the best schools you can attend because it asks a lot from you and requires complete dedication throughout the five years.

At the same time, it’s very rewarding. When you arrive in first year and look at the Master students, you think you’ll never be able to do what they do. Then, by the end, you realise that you can.

Alumni: Matthieu Blazy

What did La Cambre bring you as a student, and how did it shape your approach to fashion?
The most important things were the friendships I made and the method I learned there.

We studied at a time before social media, which gave us a certain freedom and ambition. What La Cambre brought me was a very physical approach to the garment. It wasn’t about dreaming without substance; it was about making. And ultimately, making with a dream.

We had extraordinary teachers. They encouraged us to think about fashion through movement, technique and modern art. The education was always rooted in the reality of making while remaining open to broader cultural references.

Is there a particular memory from your time at La Cambre that has stayed with you?In my third year, we had a teacher named Marianne. One day, she put on techno music and covered the walls with huge sheets of white paper.

The exercise was about translating the physicality of sound. I still remember it because it showed me that fashion could be that too. It could be something physical, emotional and instinctive.

What do you think this generation of designers can bring that previous generations couldn’t?
Every generation brings something new to the table. It wasn’t better before, and it won’t necessarily be better after. It simply has to be new.

Student: Théodora Hadj Moussa Laublé

Can you tell us about your collection and how your experience at La Cambre has helped create your fashion world?
The starting point of the collection was a reflection on space and how to make space tangible. I started looking at architectural essays and at the way buildings are constructed. During that research, I came across the work of Gordon Matta-Clark. I loved the way he changed lines and our perception of space, while making visible what we do not usually see.

From there, I developed construction systems with wood integrated into the garments. I was also interested in the inside of garments, which led to me drawing parallels with lingerie construction. That’s why lingerie pieces appear throughout the collection.

At La Cambre, we begin by studying and analysing things as they are. That process gives us a strong foundation in what we do. From there, you can take your work wherever you want, but you always retain that sense of reality.

Alumni: Anthony Vaccarello

Looking back, what made your time at La Cambre such an important part of your development as a fashion designer?
La Cambre was an incredibly intense experience for me. Those five years were entirely dedicated to work, but they were also the years during which I built friendships that remain very important to me today.

It’s where I learned discipline. It’s also where I learned individuality -- how to find yourself, how not to look at what everyone else is doing, and instead focus on what genuinely drives you.

When I was a student, the atmosphere was very competitive. Looking at the students today, I have the impression they’re much closer to one another and more united. In the early 2000s, things felt more tense and competitive.

Is there a specific memory or experience that still resonates with you?
One person who left a lasting impression on me was a teacher named Nadine, who taught me during my first two years. She was an incredibly elegant woman. She taught us sewing, but what she transmitted went far beyond technique.

She had such an elegant eye. I still remember her perfume, her jewellery, her posture. Even today, she’s someone who has stayed with me.

What do you think this new generation of designers can express that previous generations couldn’t?
I’m not sure I believe today’s designers express more than we did. If anything, they’re growing up in a world saturated with images, and that can sometimes make it difficult to know what is truly relevant or what belongs to them.

Everything feels a little more uniform today. When we were students, the process of finding what inspired us felt more personal. Now there is so much information and so many images available at all times.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it can sometimes lead to things becoming flatter or more common. The challenge remains the same: preserving your singularity.

Student: Fantin Delattre Pirenne

What was the starting point for your collection?
This year I worked with Mario Merz. I was interested in the structures he creates, particularly his igloos and the different elements that appear within them.

I translated those ideas into clothing through straps, draping and different ways of creating volume.

How has La Cambre helped you develop your creative universe?
La Cambre helped me understand the importance of looking directly at an artist’s work rather than relying on a background story.

It encouraged me to be more direct and, at the same time, more personal in my work.

Alumni: Nicolas Di Felice

Looking back, what made your time at La Cambre such an important part of your development as a fashion designer? Is there a specific memory or experience that still resonates with you?
It’s more a general feeling than one specific moment. What stayed with me is the way education is approached here. It’s very global. The goal isn’t simply to make a good collection or to be interested only in fashion.

The school cultivates curiosity. We shared classes with students from all the other departments, so it was really a 360-degree education. Of course, fashion remained the focus, just as sculpture students focused on sculpture, but that openness makes a huge difference.

What has always defined La Cambre is its commitment to helping students find themselves and develop their singularity, rather than fitting into predefined boxes. The school encourages students to cultivate their differences and push them further.

At the same time, it provides a very strong technical foundation, whether through direct cutting, flat pattern cutting or drawing. The emphasis is always on developing a personal language rather than reproducing stereotypes. In that sense, it’s really an anti-stereotype education.

What strikes you about the new generation of students presenting their work today?What I find interesting is that the students are encouraged to question all the fashion automatisms they already know. They’re constantly pushed to move beyond familiar references and established ways of working.

Honestly, I was surprised by some of the things I saw today. You sometimes feel like you’ve already seen everything, but there were at least a couple of students whose work genuinely surprised me. I was struck by their combinations of materials and by unexpected technical solutions – one student [mention name] even used wood as boning.

I think that willingness to explore unusual ideas comes directly from the fact that they’re encouraged to step outside the beaten path.

Student: Loïc Bernier

Can you tell us about your collection and how your experience at La Cambre has helped create your fashion world?
My collection, ‘Cutting Through Wind’, began with research into the shapes and positions that bodies take in speed sports such as track cycling and speed skiing.I developed those shapes into prosthetic elements and then used those prostheses to create a wardrobe that integrates those forms into garments.

La Cambre helped me by providing a set of principles and guidelines for developing a collection. It taught me how to move from influences to garments and how to work from things that are real rather than from vague concepts.

Alumni: Marie Adam-Leenardt

Looking back, what made your time at La Cambre such an important part of your development as a fashion designer?
La Cambre isn’t a factory for designers. It’s not a place that tries to produce the next big name in fashion. There’s something very humble about the school. It’s about work, above all else.

Nobody makes you believe in fairytales. You’re taught that where you end up depends on your work and your commitment.La Cambre is also a family. There are very few students, so there’s a real focus on each person individually.

What I find incredible about the school is that we study clothing in three dimensions. You’re immediately working with materials, directly in 3D. Over time, you learn the entire wardrobe and all of its archetypes.

That’s something that remains central to my work today. It creates a practice that is deeply rooted in reality, and in the way people actually dress. What people wear, and what they want to wear, is incredibly important.

The school also teaches you not to make things for the sake of it. The strength of the idea always comes first. The concept and the thinking behind a garment are essential.

Is there a particular memory from your time at La Cambre that has stayed with you?
My first year at La Cambre was probably the best year of my life.

Before arriving there, I didn’t come from a creative background at all. I didn’t even really think I was capable of creating. Then suddenly you’re surrounded by people who push your ideas further and encourage you to develop them.

Realising that you’re capable of creating, while being immersed in that constant exchange of ideas, is an incredible feeling. The people around me played a huge role in that. Sangha [name, role] was incredible. Tony [name, role] was incredible. The whole environment gave me confidence and made me believe I could do this.

What do you think this new generation of designers can express that previous generations couldn’t?
I think we’re living through a moment where fashion feels quite stagnant. Everyone agrees that things need to change, but very little is actually happening. Not many risks are being taken.

We’re in a strange period of transition. It feels like we’re at the end of one era, but not yet fully inside the next one. There’s a sense of suspension-an in-between moment. The question for my generation, but also for the generations before us, is how to reimagine a system that is struggling today.

People still want to be surprised. They still love fashion. The challenge is finding ways to keep that alive while responding to the world we live in now.

At my scale, it’s different because I don’t have the platform of a major fashion house. But that’s exactly the question: how do you create fashion that remains intelligent, thoughtful and capable of pushing things one step further?

Student: Lalou Weyrich

Can you tell us about your collection and how your experience at La Cambre has helped create your fashion world?
I referenced a pop-up book. I use a lot of maquettes to begin my work and to create volume. For example, I made a paper maquette in the form of a book, which later became a coat.

Throughout the collection, I developed systems that open and close like a pop-up book. You can see it in the skirts and trousers, where parts of the garment unfold and create volume in the same way a pop-up page expands when a book is opened.

This year, I was very happy to work on a womenswear collection. I wanted to create something chic, fluid and full of movement. At the same time, I like to introduce playful elements into my work. That’s why I incorporated colours such as green to disrupt a more classic and elegant wardrobe.

At La Cambre, we have a very particular way of working, and that’s what I appreciate most. We begin with maquettes and work directly on the mannequin. We don’t start with mood boards. We start by creating volume and construction. That’s something that has been very important in shaping my approach to design.

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Alumni: Léa Peckre & Julien Dossena

Is there a particular memory from your time at La Cambre that has stayed with you?
Léa Peckre: It’s really my friends. Looking back, it’s funny because we barely had time to support one another in the traditional sense. The rhythm was so intense. But we were together all the time, and somehow that created a kind of symbiosis.

You don’t always realise it at the time, but you’re sharing the same struggles, the same constraints and the same moments of joy.

Julien Dossena: I remember moments when I was struggling and finding letters from classmates in my mailbox. I still remember getting notes from Matthieu [Blazy] telling me to keep going, that everything would be fine and that we were all in it together. We all lived in the same neighbourhood, and there was a real sense of solidarity.

What strikes you about the new generation of designers?
Julien Dossena: One thing that surprised me today is how articulate they are. When they present their work, they’re very precise in the way they explain their ideas and the vocabulary they use. I don’t remember being that precise or that confident when I was a student. You can feel that communication plays a much bigger role than it did for our generation.

Léa Peckre: I think the relationship between students and the industry has changed as well. There is more guidance and more kindness than there was when we were studying. The environment we entered 20 years ago was very different. Certain behaviours were accepted then that simply wouldn’t be today. Thankfully, things have evolved for the better.

Julien Dossena: I was actually surprised that only one student today talked about starting their own brand. Most wanted to work within existing houses. I think that reflects a clear understanding of how difficult it is to build a business today.

They’re very aware of the opportunities offered by social media and digital platforms, but they’re also realistic about the challenges that come with turning a creative project into something sustainable.

Student: Manon Schied

Can you tell us about your collection and how your experience at La Cambre has helped create your fashion world?
At the beginning of the collection, there is a technical principle based on my third corners. When two perpendicular folds meet, a forty-five-degree angle is created in order to avoid excess fabric. Starting from that principle, I realised that by adding pieces of fabric within the same pattern, I could generate new volumes. By varying different parameters, such as the length of the seam or the depth of the fold, I was able to place those volumes in different areas of the garment.

At the same time, I researched references from queer and lesbian culture in the 1930s. Those references informed the formal wardrobe, the shirts, the trousers and the striped fabrics.

Alumni: Louis Gabriel Nouchi

Looking back, what made your time at La Cambre such an important part of your development as a fashion designer? Is there a specific memory or experience that still resonates with you?
I always wanted to do something playful during the fashion show. I remember exchanging clothes on the runway. It was very student-like, but at least it wasn’t a classic runway. What’s funny is that everything I did at school still feels like a laboratory for what I do with my brand today. I think that’s true for a lot of us.

I loved being pushed. It was a great time, even if we barely slept and it was completely hardcore. The energy was incredible. It also gave us a sense of professionalism because we learned everything: stitching, casting, sound design, textile development. It was a real 360-degree education.

What was special about La Cambre was its perspective. There’s something very Belgian about it. A lot of humour. Even though people are perfectionist, they don’t take themselves too seriously. That’s rare. It’s probably why Belgian designers are so appreciated in studios. There’s a balance between professionalism and humanity.

What strikes you about the new generation of students presenting their work today?
What’s interesting is that I see a lot of nostalgia. Personally, I feel this generation should be looking towards the future. I was surprised not to see more projects engaging with AI, for example.

When I was studying, we were witnessing the arrival of social media. At the time, image was secondary to me. The priority was making clothes. Today, AI and digital tools are part of this generation’s DNA, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. It’s a tool. Like any tool, it can be used well or badly.

People reacted the same way to e-commerce and social media. They thought it would destroy everything. It didn’t. As creative people, we should see these developments as opportunities.

Fashion school is a laboratory. Students don’t need to sell anything yet. They can experiment. For me, school was almost cathartic. You work constantly; you’re completely immersed in your own world. There aren’t many moments in life when you get that freedom.

What surprises me today is that so few students seem interested in starting their own brands. Most want to work in studios. I understand why — the industry is much tougher than it was for us.

But I think they should take risks. Don’t worry about making something ugly. What matters is whether it creates emotion. This generation is growing up with social media, AI, political tension, war, and constant crises. If anything, they have even more reasons to create work that makes people feel something.

There are periods in history when you’re living inside something extraordinary without realising it. In the 1990s, I was in my twenties, living in New York, taking my first steps into the world that would later define my life. The city pulsed with possibility; the air was charged with creativity. Everything seemed open.

This image comes from ‘Fashion Marathon’, the cover story of Vogue Italia’s March 1997 issue, photographed by Steven Meisel. It drew inspiration from Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, in which Jane Fonda stars in a devastating portrait of the Great Depression. The premise – a group of desperate young people enduring punishing dance marathons for a cash prize – offered a metaphor for ambition, survival and the commodification of endurance. Meisel reinterpreted it through fashion’s lens, staging a competition at once glamorous and cruel, a spectacle where beauty and exhaustion were entwined.

By the late 1990s, Meisel was already the undisputed master of fashion narrative. To me, he remains the greatest fashion photographer of all time, alongside Richard Avedon. His voracious cultural appetite let him move between homage and invention, absorbing references from painting, cinema, art, current events and social issues, and transmuting them into something wholly his own. Each month he reinvented himself, with only one constant: perfection.

Vogue Italia was my North Star. Without social media, the magazine was a primary portal to visual culture; you didn’t scroll, you anticipated. And when it came, you studied it until the next issue arrived.

The 1990s were a cultural crucible. Artists collaborated with fashion houses in ways that felt radical: Cindy Sherman with Comme des Garçons, Vanessa Beecroft with Gucci. Fashion borrowed art’s theatricality, art borrowed fashion’s boldness. There was a hunger to learn, to cross disciplines without asking permission.

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Fashion photography was also shifting. The gloss of the 1980s gave way to a more varied language. Magazines featured photographers such as Corinne Day, whose intimate style, shaped by Nan Goldin’s influence, brought rawness and emotional proximity. Editorials could now be gritty as well as aspirational.

Meisel existed both within and beyond this shift. While most photographers could be categorised – glamorous, documentary, minimalist – he was something else. Chameleonic yet unmistakable. He could inhabit any style, from fantasy to stripped-back realism, without losing his signature: absolute precision in every detail.

The ‘Fashion Marathon’ cast (Vincent Gallo, Amber Valletta, Carolyn Murphy, Karen Elson, Kristen McMenamy and Naomi Campbell) embodied both individuality and the era’s collective language. In Meisel’s hands, they became characters in a drama speaking as much to cinema and social history as to seasonal trends.

Seen now, the story feels like a parable. The marathon as an allegory for fashion’s pace, relentless and competitive, was prescient. The late 1990s already accelerated toward the 24/7 cycle that defines today.

Pollack’s film also inspired Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2004 collection, where couples danced to exhaustion in a distorted ballroom. Like Meisel, McQueen reframed cinema’s despair into fashion’s theatre, where the runway became both stage and battleground.

In 1997, I could not have known that four years later I would join Vogue Italia, where I would remain for over 25 years. At the time, I was a photographer’s assistant at Pier59 Studios, immersed in shoots, light tests and model castings. I understood mechanics, but Vogue Italia (and Meisel in particular) showed me how mechanics could be elevated into cultural commentary.

The enduring power of ‘Fashion Marathon’ lies in the way it operates at once as an homage to cinema, a mirror to fashion’s pace, a document of the 1990s at its creative zenith, and an allegory that remains legible decades later. By reframing 1930s despair through 1990s fashion, Meisel collapses historical distance and reminds us how spectacle and survival intertwine then, as now. The image endures not only for its beauty but because it is intellectually alive, demanding to be read as much as admired.

In 1986, six graduates of the fashion program at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp piled into a van and drove to London, where they presented their collections at that year’s British Designer Show. The designers, Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee, otherwise known as ‘the Antwerp Six’, would change the course of fashion history with their radical approach to design. One that challenged industry norms and christened Antwerp as a new fashion capital.

Forty years later, a new cohort of students is graduating from the school, preparing to find their place in the industry – perhaps becoming one of the next big names within it. On the occasion of their graduation presentation, System’s Houssem El Ghoul visited Antwerp to speak to them about what it means to be a young person in fashion today, and what they hope to achieve in fashion’s future.

Feng Zhangchong (China)

Can you tell us about your collection?
The starting point of my collection was a visit to a ballroom in my hometown with a high school classmate, which was about to be demolished. Seeing all the people dancing there, I suddenly felt that this world was going to disappear: my father’s generation, the way they entertained, the environment I grew up in.

I wanted to depict all of that, the Cantonese pop songs, the celebrities on TV, the singers and dancers, the way they moved. I grew up in a Cantonese-speaking area, and all of those things combined make up my collection. It’s a memory collection. I add a lot of volume to the garments to capture that flow and movement. There’s also a lot of funny slang in our dialect. The humour in our language is, I think, a gift we’re born with, and I wanted to bring that humour into the collection too.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
The best thing is that it allows you to meet different kinds of people and opens your mind to how different people think. If you’re working alone, you only have one perspective. Here, you can meet with people, discuss with them, talk about what they’re interested in and introduce what you’re interested in. Then you can find new things and new directions within that dialogue.

Also, the fashion industry is always running on limited time, which pushes you a lot. Sometimes in that pressure you will figure things out in a new way. Working within a limited time frame forces you to think much, much better than when you are thinking in your leisure time.

You also always critique yourself, because sometimes you wonder if you’re good enough, given how much time you’ve put into it. The teachers always push me out of my comfort zone. They always say, “You have to think about it in a different direction. Don’t just stop here.”

What do you think your generation can express through fashion that older generations could not?
I think every designer has their own personality no matter which generation they are from. Different people see the world from different angles, singularity cuts across all generations. You just have to stay yourself, no matter what generation you’re born in. Even twins cannot copy each other’s experiences.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
After graduation, I’ll go back to China and run my brand. But I’m still considering the bigger market, the whole world. If my brand runs smoothly and steadily, I would of course want to come back to Europe with my products, my garments, my design, my creations.

Conor Turley (Belgium/Ireland)

Can you tell us about your collection?
The starting point of my collection was a duality between the clothing of the ballroom scene in New York in the 1980s and 1990s, and historical paintings of men from periods when menswear was what we would usually think of as feminine now, such as the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. My work is a combination of those two eras. I’m finding a new masculinity, looking for images of certain masculinities that I find interesting and playing on that.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
At the Royal Academy, I feel students are very free to express themselves in any way: drawing, painting, sculpture, anything. There are no boundaries here at school.

What do you think your generation can express through fashion that older generations could not?
I think for a younger generation, there are so many possibilities now. You have social media, you have a big network, and I think through that connection you can find interesting ways to work with other people. So I think for this young generation, it’s limitless.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years I would love to be working in Paris, Milan, or Antwerp. I would be very satisfied working for a brand, being involved in a team, creating a collection.

Do you have a brand in particular in mind?
I mean, I’ve always loved Margiela. That would be the dream, but I’m open to anything.

Anna Lackner (Austria)

Can you tell us about your collection?
To put it shortly, my collection is about a diva going through a mental breakdown. It is inspired by a photography book of Juergen Teller images during his time at W Magazine when he photographed Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, and other famous, beautiful models from the 1990s, but made them look super dishevelled and messy. I love that they still look beautiful in all of this mess. It was such a different way of portraying women.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
I think the best thing is freedom and honesty. I love when people are just honest to me and just tell me what I can change, what I can improve, because I don’t like to sugarcoat things.

How do you think the designers of your generation differ from designers in the past?The biggest difference is that we grew up with the internet, and I think that can be a disadvantage and an advantage. It’s definitely a new perspective that we bring to the table.

Do images from social media platforms like Pinterest or Instagram influence you?
Not really. Personally, I really love to go look at museums like The Met or The V&A. They have these huge [digital] archives, and it’s so practical to look through.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I have a big love of embroidery and textiles and I would love to dive more deeply into that. I would also love to work for any brand where I feel comfortable.

Do you have a particular brand in mind?
Yes, but it’s a bit my own secret; it’s manifesting in a way. I’m quietly manifesting and wishing that everything will come.

Yvonne Schichtel (USA)

Can you tell us about your collection?
The starting point of my collection was when I learned about the work of Marija Gimbutas. She wrote that we once had a matrilineal and peaceful society before we became the war-like patriarchal society that we still exist in today. I thought if systems are collapsing, maybe we will restart in this way.

So I was looking a lot at her work and all of the goddess shapes and triangles that she discovered, and seeing femininity, freedom, peace and softness in a new kind of way. She also studied a lot how we were very connected to nature in this cycle of change and rebirth. So everything in the collection has dégradés, it changes from one print to another; it is a transformation.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
There are many amazing things, but I think the best is the focus that you’re able to get here. You work so intensely that you really reach your best potential, and you just tap into another creative world, which is amazing.

Do you think AI will have an effect on fashion design in the future?
For sure. I think it’s crazy what has happened even in the past year with AI in how we work, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m kind of scared of it. But I think you have to get on top of it before it gets on top of you, and I hope we can find a way to always be creating for ourselves before we start asking a robot.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, I would love to be working at a fashion house in Paris.

Do you have one in mind?
I love Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel. I think the softness and the femininity, it’s everything that I was also trying to do this year, so it was very beautiful to see.

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Carla Lázaro Bonet (Spain)

Can you tell us about your collection?
My collection is inspired by my grandmother and this point that some older women reach when they start not giving a fuck about social norms. I think that’s what she did, and I would love to experience that soon, if possible!

I expressed this idea through flowers because I think it’s a symbol for women, but to me it’s not about the beauty of them – it’s about resilience and growing through cracks and still remaining flawless. I wanted to work with a lot of experimental materials like latex, developed appliqués, and also my own printed sequins.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
The best thing about the Royal Academy is the freedom and creativity that teachers give you to express yourself as you want. They really push you to find yourself, who you are as an artist and as a designer, and I’m really grateful for that.

You’re from Barcelona, which has a growing fashion scene. Why did you choose to go to Antwerp?
I studied in Barcelona before. After that, it felt that I needed more, and it felt that I wanted to still know who I am as a designer and creative. So I just thought this was the perfect place to find myself.

What is your advice for young designers today?
Work with what you have. There are some limitations in budget and materials, and for me this year it was about finding the way of making what I want to make. Maybe it’s not the easiest way. It would perhaps have been easier working with a company, but I wasn’t able to.

For example, with the sequins, I could have found a place to maybe laser cut them for me, but when I tried that, they got burn marks and it wasn’t working. So in the end I just had to hand cut everything myself and with help from my family. I think there’s also beauty in that, in just trying to find a way of making it work, even though it’s not the easiest or the most perfect one.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years I would like to be working for a brand, working hard with a team and sharing a vision, sharing a passion and working together to achieve something.

Studying is wonderful, but it can also be very lonely sometimes because you carry the weight of the whole collection. So I’m very excited to start in a brand and just have a team and share a vision and a goal.

Do you have a brand in mind, or people you want to work with?
I don’t want to name a brand specifically, but I would love to be related to any kind of artisanal or more experimental line or brand because it’s what I enjoy the most.

Vincent Körber (Germany)

Can you tell us about your collection?
I started my collection with a research trip to Palermo. While I was there, it became very apparent to me that the rich history of the area, starting with its Ancient Roman influences to the Arabic influences and Venetian influences, to a very important 19th and 20th century, is still very apparent in the modern-day infrastructure, which is very rare for most European historical cities, where one historical domain tends to take over.

By this pattern of how the future progresses in Palermo, I was able to see how time actually changes in Palermo from its history into its current state, because it gave me a very clear lineage from the Roman sculptures that were there in 200 BC, to the first towers that were shaped by the Arabic influences, to the palaces that were made in the Venetian era.

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But the most interesting part is that in the 19th and 20th centuries, the mafia took away all of the money that was being put into the infrastructure. So you have all of these palaces and this rich, decadent history, but actually when you look at pictures from the 1920s, and you’re walking through the same exact room, the only difference is that back then it was a little bit more unkempt than it is now. So the actual progression of how the future happens in Palermo is a little bit in reverse, where you normally think of a more modernistic future. In Palermo, the future has more of a relevance to decay.

Out of this pattern, my thesis was created: How can I predict the next near and far future step based on this pattern of history? And how does this affect the garments? How can real clothing be an element of life within this new world, which will be there maybe in five or ten years?

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
For me, it is two things. First of all, the people that you meet here. You get into an environment where you can have much more interesting conversations that maybe previously were only found on forums online.

The second thing is just the way that the lessons are structured. There’s a certain pressure for you to learn on your own, which I think is really helpful. That pressure allows you to really deal with circumstances of collection progression in a very refined and thoughtful way, where your focus is very clear. It gives you a certain confidence in your process, which not just helps you for your collection, but I think also in general.

What can young designers express through fashion that older designers cannot?
I think the game is going to be interesting now. There is a lot of room for disruption. The industry has become much more global than back in the day.

Young designers with a very small team can make extremely high-quality work and produce not just physical clothing, but also an extremely high-quality online presence, which is something that could not have been done previously.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, it’s very hard to say because everything is changing so fast. I hope there’s a research avenue I can follow, where I’m looking at aesthetics and automation of online aesthetics. Product is so often seen and experienced only through an online format. If you think of the collections you’ve seen, how often have you actually seen them in real life? I think there is a certain avenue in thinking about world-building that brands so desire to do, but yet so many fail at actually doing. So, I hope that in five years I will be doing some kind of broader research into how you can become more adaptive as a brand in this general holistic world-building.

Bartosz Borowski (Poland)

Can you tell us about your collection?
My collection is inspired by Lucian Freud and his sitters. I looked at all the characters in his paintings, then narrowed the selection down to twelve characters. Each of those characters turned out to be real people–like Bella Freud,Queen Elizabeth, Francis Bacon– so I did research on what they were wearing. I analysed what they are wearing, how they carry themselves, and I combined all of that with how Lucian’s life, his studio, his house looked. I merged all of this into twelve looks.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
The attitude towards work. It can be really demanding to work in fashion, but also you can develop so much in such a short period of time. It really pays off the amount of effort you’re putting out.

How do you think the designers of your generation differ from designers in the past?
I think there is a lot of space for new tools that are being given to us, so there is a lot of space for development in that way. Also, the amount of research we can do right now and the access that we can have to it can really allow you to produce countless ideas.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Not quite in five years, because that’s still quite a short time, but at some point I would really like to have my own brand. First I would like to work for a brand, learn, gather more experience, and see how a real house works, and let’s see where it gets me. I’m really obsessed with Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent. That’s my personal favourite if I had to say, for what I wear. But I also really like Matthieu Blazy at Chanel.

Yichun Liu (China)

Can you tell us about your collection?
My collection is basically about how female characters depart from their normal life. I was born in a very traditional Chinese family, and I always wanted to escape from the family expectation and also the social expectations for a girl in China. So it’s always about escaping and the shifting structure. You can see from my collection that it’s always the structure going outside. I wanted to see how, if I use shaping, it can be beautiful. I want to create beauty using this kind of structure.

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What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
For me it’s the colleagues here. Every student here is so talented. You can’t get this kind of atmosphere in another school because they work so hard.

There is also something like a sorority among students. We don’t necessarily have a formal sisterhood, but we help each other because we know everyone is trying to survive this together.

Why did you choose this school?
Because I really loved Margiela and Ann Demulemeester from an early age, and I have a lot of archival pieces from them. I want to create garments, but in an art way. I think there is no other school better than this one for that.

What do you think your generation of designers can express through fashion that older generations could not?
I think it’s the attitude. The older generation had their own attitude also, but they were more focused on creating pure beauty. For our generation, we also want to express our attitude and our personalities. Designers now have more of themselves in their collections. It’s almost like they become part of the brand.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Over the next five years, I really want to dig into accessories: shoes and bags. I think that is really interesting for me.

Would you rather create your own brand directly, or pass through a big house first?
I want to create my own brand. My girlfriend and I also want to start a brand in China, but we’ll see.

Jeron Grünewald (Germany)

Can you tell us about your collection?
My collection started with the title of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s movie Angst essen Seele auf, which translates to ‘ear Eats the Soul.’ At the same time, I was looking at a lot of Goya paintings like Saturn Devouring His Son and movies from the German Expressionist era like Nosferatu.

With this collection, I wanted to create a black-and-white contrast, inspired by the image of a demon creature next to a virginal white dress. So, it starts with an all-white look and then goes darker, more demon-esque. A lot of the fabrics that I use are deadstock leather that are really, really dirty, very scratched, and I combined that with the sensitivity of a lot of veils to create a sense of eeriness.

What is the best thing about being a student at the Royal Academy?
I think the best but also the most challenging thing is that you have to do everything by yourself. I mean, of course you are in conversation with teachers and with other students, but you are the one that’s scouting for the fabrics and [other logistical things] in addition to creating the designs.

Why do young designers have an advantage when it comes to understanding what people want?
I think young minds are closer to young people, both through social media and through real life, through school, on the street. They still have that connection to what young people want. And I think that comes more naturally to young people to narrow it all down, to see the thread that runs through everything.

Where would you like to be in five years?
I would love to still be designing menswear and, hopefully one day, maybe five years, I’ll also be back in Germany.

Substack that isn’t mine
I love , , , , and .

Substack I think everyone will be talking about soon
and .

Substack I recommend to everyone
.

Article I read on Substack
Is Mike Wazowski Jewish or Polish?

Note I saw on Substack
This really made me laugh out loud.

Reason I joined Substack
I saw Patti Smith record these early-2000s reality-sequence video diaries, and it was so intimate and felt so real in a world that is anything but, and it’s the internet I missed.

Advice I have for anyone trying to make it on Substack
Write about what excites you.

Fashion show I attended
The first Yeezy show and Valentino Autumn/Winter 2025-2026 in the red bathrooms.

Fashion I didn’t attend
Almost all of them… Invite me!

Online shop
Aftelier Perfumes.

Fashion item I inherited
My dad’s 1990s Russell athletic cut-off sleeveless shirts.

Person whose closet I wish I could raid
Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.

Things that inspired my current style
Less literal but more vibe-wise: Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Mike Tyson and Talbots (I love an old woman store).

Fashion item I prize more than any other
My cowboy boots. They don’t make this style anymore, and they make me feel powerful. I really wish I bought three pairs.

Outfit I wore when I was a teenager
Lots of colours, argyle, J. Crew button-downs and Hollister because I worked there when I was 18.

Outfit that made me fall in love with someone
An outfit never made me fall in love, but a T-shirt and a sheer shirt helped the process.

Outfit that feels like my signature style
Black Gildan shirt, black Levi’s, cowboy boots and a Japanese belt I bought recently.

Things that inspired my teenage style
WWF, Blink 182, and The Mighty Ducks.

Fashion advice I was given
A really confident man doesn’t have to do much and only needs to wear a well-fitting T-shirt.

Fashion lesson I learned
Just wear what makes you feel comfortable, and for me it’s all black all the time. I have no interest in wearing any other colours.

Fashion subculture
I like the clothes old people wear on the Upper West Side. I also like simple fashion, and I hate when I see people try too hard, especially men.

Fashion trend I wish would come back
Men wearing suits everywhere.

People I go to when I need creative inspiration
Leonard Cohen, Mike Tyson and me.

Fashion Instagram account I follow
@leonardcohen

I was raised by people who believed visibility could be a form of action. When it comes to the intersection of style and politics, there are two photographs of my grandmother that shaped the way I understand the relationship between the two.

In one, she’s a 20-something theologian – a Black American woman in the late 1940s – addressing a spellbound crowd of thousands of white convention-goers at the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag [German Evangelical Church Assembly], a massive gathering devoted to connecting faith with social responsibility. Her speech is part-sermon, part-political lecture. She delivers it wearing traditional West African dress and gara headwear among a sea of Western suits and sensible shoes.

In the other, she’s on a state visit to Taiwan in a glamorous tailored two-piece with a leopard collar, matching clutch, and headpiece. She knows it will turn heads, but she also knows that they are staring anyway. So she makes no apologies. Behind her, a local onlooker is caught mid-reaction, mouth open, tongue out, completely disarmed by her presence and presentation.

In both images, before she says a word, she has already spoken.

My grandmother understood that stylistic difference, when borne with intention, carries meaning. Whether she was at a pulpit, in a classroom, or simply walking into a room, she moved with the same conviction: presence can challenge power. Watching her, I learned that occupying space fully and unapologetically could shift the terms of the conversation. She knew then, as I know now, that fashion communicates. Before I understood hemlines or house codes or hierarchies of design, I understood that.

That early education is what I carry with me when I talk about fashion as a tool to challenge the systems that contain us. For better or worse, style signals who we are and what we believe. So the idea that fashion can opt out of politics is one I fundamentally reject. Now more than ever, we cannot subscribe to the false privilege of neutrality or pretend our industry is exempt from responsibility.

To do so ignores how fashion actually functions: it’s made by people, shaped by history, moved through to global supply chains and tied to traditions of craft that hold cultural memory, to status and to ceremony. It isn’t abstract. It can offer protection, physically and psychologically. It gives shape to identity in public space. Getting dressed is one of the ways we make meaning visible.

So in every fitting and on every set, I think about who is being seen and who is missing, because those choices determine whose stories get told and whose remain invisible. I think about the long life of an image and the stories it will tell after the moment has passed. And I recognise that for public figures, especially in politics, a single look can calcify into a narrative that defines entire eras.

As a stylist, I have felt the weight of that.

When I worked with Kamala Harris for the cover of Vogue, she wore American designers and Converse. A deliberate choice to present her as grounded and approachable at a historic moment – warm, human, relatable after four years of cruelty in American political life. The response made clear that many people read the image differently. Some saw it as too casual and lacking the gravity they associated with the office. Others felt it was safe, unglamorous and overly deferential to American fashion nationalism.

Looking back, I see how much of our thinking was shaped by a desire to make her legible and palatable within existing expectations of power. That grasp for relatability flattened the message. It was a lesson I will never forget.

A different energy guided my work styling Rama Duwaji for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral inauguration. Our starting point was honesty rather than acceptability. Propriety politics were not part of the conversation. This moment could speak to global connection and solidarity while authentically expressing Rama’s taste and sensibilities.

Rama’s choice to wear a coat designed by Cynthia Merhej, a Palestinian-Lebanese designer, reflected a real connection to cultural identity and political reality. Nothing about the look was permission-seeking. It asserted itself on the steps of City Hall while protestors tried their hardest to make the new mayor and his partner feel unwelcome. They, and their respective looks, claimed their place in history anyway. The public responded to that clarity. They recognised it as genuine and felt inspired by it.

These experiences have only reinforced what my grandmother showed me decades ago: clothing is never just decoration. Fashion can obscure meaning or make it unmistakable – prop up harmful hierarchies or help dismantle them. The idea that fashion should sit outside politics ignores the truth that we have always dressed our beliefs.

The only real question is how consciously we choose to speak through what we wear.

System: What kinds of conversations were you having with stylist Suzanne Koller and photographer Johnny Dufort about the vision for the story before and during the shoot?
Tom Wright: It’s an organic process working with Suzanne and Johnny. We were aligned in terms of what’s going to work creatively for the picture. Every morning, there was a conversation and ideas were exchanged about how we could make the models look cool and modern while retaining who they are. I feel like being able to recognise the models was very important for the story.

Did your approach shift at all as the days went on?
As the shoot progressed, I felt excited about the story. It’s quite hard to know how something like this is going to develop.

What’s one detail that makes a difference once it’s on camera?
It’s just about keeping your eye on the hair. Hair looks different from every angle, so you need to be prepared to evolve the hair for the picture and what looks good for the garments.

With so many girls, how do you keep a sense of continuity without everything feeling the same?
Thom [Walker] and I have a great relationship; we really understand each other. When you’re working with so many models, you need to work closely – with the same cognitive function if you will! It’s imperative. I feel like together we added those little nuances here and there that make things feel different, but kept in the same world.

What was the biggest challenge of working on the looks for 80+ images?
The biggest challenge is keeping the energy up as a team. Throwing ideas out there and working as a collective. Once you find the rhythm, you have to keep working with it.

Have you ever worked on a project like this before?
Yes. I worked on System Collections Autumn/Winter 2025-2026. That was also challenging, but both are iconic and I’m very grateful to be back.

Was there a moment when the hair really set the tone for the shoot?
Hair can really elevate a model’s character. There was one particular look I did on Frauke [Nijs], it was my favourite of the shoot. We added a full head of extensions, wove the hair around in a figure-8 pattern, then heated the hair and brushed it out to create quite an extreme amount of volume and texture. I feel this added a lot of strength.

Are there any particular techniques or tricks you used during the shoot?
There’s a great look we did on Libby [Taverner] for texture and volume that isn’t difficult. It’s quick and effective. All you have to do is section your hair, add hairspray, braid it to the ends, and clamp it with straightening irons until you’ve evenly heated all your hair. Let your hair cool. Undo the braids, then brush out.The only thing you need to consider is how big you want your hair. The more sections of hair you do, the bigger your hair will be.

Looking back, what ties the hair together?
I feel like we really embodied the models’ own character with each of the girls. Whether that was elevating what was there or keeping things a little more natural. For me, that was the thread that brought continuity with such a major shoot.

Fashion show soundtrack

I loved Frederic Sanchez’s Dior couture soundtrack… Massive Attack, Vivaldi, Beth Gibbons singing ‘A thousand flowers could bloom’ in that room filled with thousands of cyclamen on the ceiling… However, I have a gripe with fashion houses: they always use a different version when they upload it to YouTube. My friend James converts the YouTube videos into MP3 files for me, so I can listen to them on my bike rides. I would like Frederic to send me the original audio, please.

Fashion show I attended

John Galliano’s final couture show for Maison Margiela. It was the kind of show I got into fashion for, and I thought it was too late to ever witness.

Fashion show I didn’t attend

I would have loved to see Haider Ackermann’s shows for Tom Ford. But I was NFI.

Fashion look from a movie

Rekha in Umrao Jaan.

Vintage find

I once found a 1981 runway denim jacket by Azzedine Alaïa in a thrift store for €30, which makes it even more priceless.

Thing I bought for under £50

A (fake) leopard print Peretti cuff from a junk shop in Fulham. I think it was £6. Someone who works for Tiffany asked me how I found such a rare piece.

Investment piece I purchased

Somehow, a couple of years ago, I won a modest bid on Mouna Ayoub’s mink coat from Yves Saint Laurent’s last ever haute couture collection. It makes me feel like a million bucks.

Irl shop

Portobello Market on a Friday morning. Jake’s and Twos on a Saturday afternoon. Buried Deep in Paris. Pennisi in Milan. Le Bon Marché’s food hall in Paris.

Online shop

The Saleroom. Vinted. Kerry Taylor Auctions.

Fashion item I inherited

I have no inheritance, but my karakul hats from Kashmir are the closest thing I will have from my grandfathers.

Fashion item I stole

I suppose I have stolen a lot of ideas from Carine Roitfeld.

Person whose closet I wish I could raid

Miuccia Prada. Especially her jewellery box. Or is it a vault?

Fashion mistake I made

Whenever I tried to conform, it always felt like a costume. It took me almost 30 years to come to terms with the fact that to know thyself is to be open to change.

Fashion item I lost

A friend once non-consensually ‘borrowed’ a pair of Raf Simons leopard pony gloves and lost them on a night out. We haven’t spoken since.

Fashion magazine story

It changes all the time depending on my mood. Right now, I’m really into cardigans, so it’s ‘A Close Fit’, a Glen Luchford story for Vogue from 1995, styled by Camilla Nickerson.

Person that inspired my teenage style

I grew up in East London at a time when the neighbourhood was booming, and it was all about Agyness Deyn, MIA, Alexa Chung et cetera. But really, every single person on the planet at the time wanted to be Kate Moss.

Person that inspires my current style

I’m currently very obsessed with Liya Kebede’s personal style in the 2000s, and the way my friend Lakshmi Menon wears clothes.

Fashion item I wish I bought

My first ever job was working for the auctioneer Kerry Taylor. Back then, she’d hold these secret warehouse auctions where you could buy a lot of 20 Chanel bags for £200, which was way out of my budget back then.

Fashion I bought and wish I didn’t

So much menswear. Lol.

Fashion item I prize more than any other

Right now, it’s a Tom Ford for YSL Autumn-Winter 2004 dress I bought in Paris that I maxxed out my credit card on. No regrets.

Outfit that feels like my signature style

A pencil skirt, halterneck tank top, sex-shop heels, and a really beautiful cashmere cardigan.

Outfit I wore when I was a teenager

Day-glo. Topshop skinny jeans. Spitalfields costume jewellery. American Apparel. Really ugly 1980s vintage.

Outfit I wore recently

I love my new Rescha ‘galaxy’ skirt that I got at her showroom in Paris – she’s a young French-Indian designer. One to watch.

Outfit that made me fall in love with someone

Whenever I see John Allan, the love of my life, in a beautiful piece of Saint Laurent tailoring or the perfect pair of jeans, I fall in love all over again.

Fashion advice I was given

“No one is looking at you, dear,” by one of my first editors. It helped me focus on my work, which I’m grateful for now because it sharpened my eyes and voice.

Fashion lesson I learned

What’s the point of having a beautiful wardrobe if you don’t have the right furniture to sit on? Clothes are important, but the life you live in them is so much more meaningful.

Fashion subculture

Punk.

Source for creative inspiration

The places I’ve been, and all the places I haven’t been yet.

Fashion trend I wish would disappear

Heat-seeking missiles (the people).

Fashion trend I wish would come back

Being able to buy designer clothes and shoes for less than £500.

Image I always have on my moodboard

Iman by Helmut Newton. That body. Those leopard boots.

Fashion Instagram account I follow

I really like seeing what Lotta Volkova and Paloma Elsesser are doing. I think they’re two of the best-dressed women on the planet.

Substack I read

My own: Private Parts.

Moment I knew I wanted to work in fashion

When I saw Galliano’s Egypt-inspired collection in the tabloids my father would bring home. I couldn’t believe that somewhere out there, there were people who lived like this.

System: Can you share more about the process of working with Suzanne Koller and Johnny Dufort? What kind of conversations were you having about the vision for the story before and during the shoot?
Thom Walker: We actually didn’t have too much dialogue before the shoot – shock horror. I’d just come off a pretty intense six-day job, so there wasn’t much time to organise things beforehand. But I’ve worked with Johnny quite a lot over the years, so I already understand his visual language and the way he likes to work.

Things can shift very quickly with Johnny, even though there’s structure underneath it all. You just have to be prepared for the image to suddenly move in a completely different direction from what you originally expected.

I’d only worked with Suzanne a handful of times before, but I really love the way she works. She’s incredibly organised and meticulous, especially on a shoot at this level. You really see the inner workings of everything.

Johnny and I exchanged a few references before the shoot – old British television clips from the 1990s, images, little visual ideas – but most of the conversations really happened on set. Suzanne would brief us every morning, and then things evolved naturally throughout the day.

So it was more day-by-day rather than something fully fixed in advance?
Exactly. I think editorial works best when there’s still room to adapt and react while you’re making it.

You mentioned the ‘Johnny girl’. How would you describe her?
She’s slightly twisted. There’s elegance to her, but also something a little off underneath. It’s never too polished.

That’s what I love about Johnny’s work. The colours, the lighting, the energy – everything feels very playful, even though the lighting itself is incredibly technical. It never feels rigid.My own work is quite restrained, so it was really about bringing that ‘Johnny girl’ energy into the beauty while still keeping it true to me.

Even when the images feel very controlled, they still feel instinctive.
Exactly. I think that’s why they feel alive.

Was there a look where the make-up changed the direction of the story more than expected?
Definitely the neon lip. I had this reference image from the 1970s – basically just two fluorescent lips from an old billboard advertisement – and I became obsessed with recreating it.

At first, I thought we’d need UV lighting to make it work, so I messaged Johnny asking if he had one. Then I realised we probably didn’t need it at all. His lighting already had enough intensity to create that effect naturally.

We ended up doing the look on two girls, and suddenly the whole mood of the shoot shifted. It became bolder and slightly more experimental, while still keeping that coolness and modernity Suzanne brings to an image.

I feel like it becomes much stronger when you focus on one thing rather than building an entire constructed face around it.
Exactly. I always feel like one thing is enough. A lip can be enough. A lash can be enough. A cheek can be enough. If everything is loud, nothing really lands emotionally.

Did your approach evolve over the three days?
Completely. Day one was really about understanding the rhythm of the shoot – understanding how Johnny was shooting, how Suzanne wanted things to move, how quickly everything needed to happen.

Once we got through that first day, everything loosened up creatively. Suddenly, we could push things further because everybody understood the language of the shoot already. You’re constantly thinking ahead on something like this. You’re shooting look one, but mentally you’re already on look three, or thinking about day three. It becomes very reactive.

It sounds exhausting, but creatively exciting at the same time.
That’s exactly what it is. After day one, everything suddenly clicked.

What’s one detail people might not notice, but that really matters on camera?
Ears and hands, honestly. People focus so much on facial make-up, but ears and hands can completely break an image if they’re not considered. Especially with very tall models, circulation changes constantly, so the ears become red, and the hands become pink. We’d massage the hands, add a little foundation onto the ears, then finish them with shine or body cream so everything stayed coherent under the flash. Those details matter massively in photography.

How did you prep the face before applying the make-up?
Prep is everything. Beautiful make-up actually starts long before any make-up is applied.

The team I had on this shoot have worked with me for years, so there’s already a shared rhythm between us. As soon as the models arrived, we’d immediately begin prepping skin – eye patches, massage, hydration – because the skin needs to stay alive throughout the day. Honestly, assistants are essential to jobs like this. I think they rarely get enough recognition. I learn from them constantly.

Especially on a production this intense, it really feels collective.
Completely. Nobody makes images like this alone.

Are there any particular techniques or tricks you used during the shoot that might be interesting to readers?
A lot of it was really about reacting to light rather than overworking the make-up itself. Johnny’s lighting changes the way the product behaves on camera, so instead of layering too much, we focused more on texture and placement.

Shimmer under Johnny’s flash suddenly becomes incredibly dimensional. The same product under different lighting could look completely flat.The neon lip is probably the best example of that. In the end, we didn’t even need UV lighting – Johnny’s lighting created the effect naturally.

Especially with the flash, the skin feels very alive.
Exactly. That’s what’s so special about his lighting.

Is there one look from the shoot you particularly loved? Can you talk us through how you created it?
There were a few, actually, but I really loved the look we did on Fatou [Kebbeh], the deep blue eye with the berry lip and the red cheek.It referenced late-1980s and early-1990s Yves Saint Laurent beauty, but we didn’t want it to feel nostalgic in an obvious way. It still needed to feel contemporary.

What I loved was seeing Fatou transformed into a completely different character. I’d mostly seen her very natural before, so suddenly creating this much stronger woman around her completely changed the image.

I also loved Caitlin [Soetendal]’s look with the tiny corner lash and the white highlight. That came from this old 1950s reference image I’d found.

She really looked like an actress in those images.
Exactly. I looked at her and immediately thought, ‘we have to do this look’.

With so many faces, how do you balance individuality with a consistent direction?
That’s probably the most important part of a shoot like this. You never want every girl to feel identical. There has to be a thread connecting everything emotionally, but each girl still needs to feel like herself. Otherwise, the images become too controlled. The consistency here came more through texture, lighting and attitude than through repeating the exact same beauty look over and over again.

Were there moments where everything suddenly worked?
Definitely after day one. The first day was intense because everyone was still understanding the rhythm of the shoot. But once we got through that, there was suddenly this collective confidence where everybody started bouncing off each other creatively. That’s really when things started becoming exciting. You stop overthinking slightly and begin trusting your instinct more.

Do certain features or expressions shift the way you approach a face?
Always. I think beauty becomes interesting when you work with someone rather than trying to impose the same idea onto every face. Some girls immediately suggest a reference to me. Sometimes it’s a film, sometimes an old runway image, sometimes just a feeling. Certain faces can hold much stronger make-up, while others become far more powerful when everything is stripped back.

What was the biggest challenge of working on looks for more than 80 images? Have you ever worked on a project like this before?
It was huge, honestly. What’s difficult is the endurance aspect. A runway show lasts maybe 15 minutes. This was 10 hours a day over three days, constantly moving and constantly thinking ahead.

Suzanne had everything mapped out, almost like a show schedule – timings, references, every girl printed out beforehand. Of course, things drift slightly off schedule because that’s just the nature of image-making, but the structure allowed everybody to move incredibly quickly.

You’re shooting look one, but mentally you’re already thinking about look three, or even day three. It becomes very reactive, but that’s also when things start becoming exciting creatively.

Looking at the story as a whole, what ties all the looks together for you?
Texture, probably. Fresh skin, flashes of shine, matte against shimmer, neon against bare faces – everything came back to texture and surface.

But honestly, a huge part of that cohesion comes from Johnny. He really understands beauty, texture and lighting. Some photographers flatten make-up completely, whereas Johnny somehow amplifies it without overpowering it. That’s why the images still feel connected even when the beauty shifts so much from girl to girl.