NEWCOMERS

GOING BOLD

Extroverted, colourful, joyful and elegant: that’s the best way to describe the garments made by Austrian fashion designer Florentina Leitner. The 25-year-old is a Master’s graduate from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and worked on Dries van Noten’s design team before setting up her own label in London. With her exclusive designs, striking prints and innovative use of materials, the designer also sets great store by sustainability, using sustainably produced fabrics and off-cuts for her collection. The pieces are finished mainly in Belgium, Italy and the UK.

Florentina demonstrated her love of experimentation and all things bizarre in her final university collection. Entitled ‘Midnight Vertigo’, it was inspired by the Hitchcock film ‘Vertigo’. Her ‘Spiral Faux Fur Coat’ with its vortex pattern symbolises the fear of heights and vertigo that plagues the policeman in the film. This year the designer won first prize in the womenswear category of the first online Global Design Graduate Show by Artsthread in collaboration with industry giant Gucci. The inspiration for her current SS22 collection ‘Vacation on the Moon’ is the Mondsee (Moon Lake) in Austria, and her vision of designing a collection for a holiday on the moon. The silhouettes are inspired by dirndl dresses, sailor jackets and spacesuits, with a colour palette ranging from metallic silver tones to summery colours like pink and various shades of blue.

In September, the young designer debuted her collection as part of the Mercedes Benz Young Talent Promotion Programme at Berlin Fashion Week. “The show at MBFW Berlin is really special for me because I was only able to present my last two collections digitally because of the pandemic. Presenting at a Mercedes Benz Fashion Week is something up-and-coming designers dream of.” Available twice a year in limited quantities, Florentina Leitner’s collections are defined by their exclusivity and individuality. The sustainable aspect of the label is not only reflected in the designs but also in the label’s distribution model: the aim is to reduce transport distances by selling directly via the online store.

SURREAL FASHION DESIGN

Flora Taubner, a graduate from the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, uses surreal creative methods in her creations. During Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Berlin, her ‘Value’ collection won the Neo.Fashion Award for Best Design. “I’ve used a practical approach to conceptual fashion, creating a collection that focuses on the individual models rather than generic categories to illustrate elements of value and worthlessness in fashion,” Flora says. The designer created ten outfits that are more like sculptures. And the starting point for each model was a contrasting pair of factors that make a garment supposedly valuable or worthless.

With ‘Value’, Flora Taubner has created a versatile collection in which the upcoming designer experiments with two-dimensionality. Such as a folded shirt affixed to a long windbreaker coat. In another piece she superimposed the silhouette of a top – like a crime scene road marking – onto an asphalt print. “I focused heavily on social conventions and clichéd themes. The initial ideas were all based on a so-called ‘objet trouvé’. During the process I continually questioned which aspects of the objet trouvé were still relevant in the end to make the desired statement comprehensible,” she explains, adding: “During the working process, these were partly alienated, fragmented or replaced by my own material. The aim of my collection is to unsettle the viewer with regard to their established values. In order to achieve this desired disconcerting effect, I used surreal and performative aesthetics.” The collection intentionally plays with quotes, clichés and associations. For the young designer, it is particularly important to make room for the actual design process of her collection in order to discover and develop new techniques and aesthetics.

SUSTAINABILITY MEETS AFRO-FUTURISM

Designer and fashion activist Paul Kadjo combines ethnic and modern design in his collections. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fashion and Design (AMD) in Hamburg and one of the winners of the first Neo.Fashion Award: his sustainability concept won over the jury at the award ceremony during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Berlin. The fashion activist was born in Germany and grew up in the Ivory Coast. As an upcoming designer, he wants to make a mark with his fashion in the diaspora and have an international influence. “I think that there’s a better way to design textile surfaces and fashion in the future and that the positive decisions we all make, however small they may be, can have a huge influence on our own health, the health of other living beings and our planet. Starting with the raw materials, I have an idea of how futureproof fashion can be designed. Fashion with coolness, style and character – fashion that is more,” says Paul Kadjo. His eponymous fashion brand unites two nations: it reflects the afro-futuristic design and fosters cross-cultural connections.

Paul Kadjo’s concept consists of four fashion lines: based on the upcycling idea – extending the lifecycle of existing raw materials and textiles – the ‘Artisan’ line is Paul Kadjo’s couture genre. It includes high-end collection pieces that pursue the classic idea of fashion design. His collection entitled ‘The Spirit Between Bodies and Objects’ consists of eight outfits and several accessories and defines the spirit, somewhere between body and object. The pieces are made from synthetic fibres including faux leather, organza and polyester, as well as natural fibres like cotton, linen and real leather. “I mainly draw my inspiration from nature and works of art,” he says. “The latter can be a painting, a sculpture or a building. I especially find traditional art and crafts exciting. But it’s the shapes, surfaces and inspiration from nature that fascinate me the most.”