The international fashion crowd’s heads were turning to Zurich past weekend, where Mode Suisse took place for its 16th edition. The main part of the event consisted of a showroom happening and the big fashion show on Saturday, which took place on the beautiful rooftops of the Allgemeine Berufsschule Zurich with a view on the mountains. In recent years, the event has developed to an established platform for Swiss fashion, attracting the country’s fashion enthusiasts and international top guests alike. To extend its presence, Mode Suisse will show their talent’s designs in Paris, New York and Geneva later this Autumn as well. Besides established labels like Julia Heuer, the graduates of two Swiss fashion-talent factories, namely HEAD Geneva and FHNW Basel, got to show their work.
Time to introduce you to five show acts which especially caught our eye.
After Work Studio
Fashion Designer Karin Wüthrich established the brand with Graphic Designer Matthias Fürst in 2016. Under the credo to make functional, yet elegant clothes which should last more than just one season, a few exclusive pieces are produced with every collection. The designers attach particular importance to sustainability; therefore the yarn coming from Austria, the knitwear all being made in Switzerland from natural materials and the other pieces being manufactured by a small team consisting of no more than 20 people in Bosnia and Herzegowina, as Wütrich states – and Fürst reaffirms: “We want to bring the textile industry back to Switzerland because the former traditional knitwear production is dying more and more – two out of the last four Swiss productions had to close down in the last ten years.”
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Julia Heuer
Julia can already look back on a considerable success abroad: Being a bestseller in Paris with DACH showroom, she also created prints for big names like Dior or Comme des Garçons before establishing her own clothing line. Her ever flowy, colourful dresses never leave the spectator’s soul untouched.
The Japanese Arashi technique, which she uses in nearly all of her designs, is about handpleating certain parts of the silky textiles. The carefully considered color palettes sometime evoke the atmosphere of a sundowner or come along as vibrant flowers bouquets at other times. A continuous all time favorite we can never get enough from!
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HEAD Genève graduate Ania Marincek
The first look of Ania’s bachelor collection Tears Of Lava must have certainly made some cineast’s heart beat faster. The long coat cut, the cowhide pattern, the high hat – Ania’s inspiration cleary derived from Montana Sacra, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychedelic masterpiece from 1971.
The other looks, too, had a certain surrealistic vibe, as twisted panels and eclectic prints meet monochrome looks in clear sky blue or the sandy orange tones of a desert.
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FHNW Basel graduates
10 different students showed several highly diverse looks of their pre-diploma collections.
If there is one thing you could name the students all seemed to have in common, it without doubt was the courage to experiment. Within their lively looks, the designers did not shy away from glaring color palettes and sweeping cuts. We are left curious about the development of these promising graduates, who have no need to hide behind the highly traditional fashion schools around the globe.
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Jacqueline Loekito
Based wholeheartedly on her motto Love Unites Us, Jacqueline Loekito showed us a pastel colored, homogenous collection with sweet heartshaped accessories. The whole nature of the looks simultaneously emphasized on a valid issue, namely the need to break with heteronormative gender guidelines.
As a highlight we could see two bodies walking the runway down in a pink one piece – a reduced, yet strong image for more cohesion, empathy and love for the person next to you.
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All photos in this article by Alexander Palacios
