Reuse, Recover, Rein­vent: The Color­ful Fash­ion of Kévin Germanier

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Fash­ion creat­ors are design­ers who create cloth­ing and accessor­ies. Kevin Germanier was born in 1992 and comes from the canton of Valais. He stud­ied at a famous school in London, Cent­ral Saint Martins.

Kevin Germani­er’s creations inspire awe with their bright colors and futur­istic shapes. However, one of his main sources of inspir­a­tion is his regional and family herit­age: for example, he makes extens­ive use of knit­ting, which he watched his grand­mother prac­tice for many years. He there­fore works with a team of around thirty knit­ters from Valais. The design­er’s grand­mother in partic­u­lar super­vises them to hand­craft knit­ted elements that are integ­rated into the collec­tions. These collec­tions are imagined in the design­er’s Paris studio. Other mater­i­als are made by crafts­wo­men and crafts­men from differ­ent coun­tries. In this way, a link between gener­a­tions and between regions is created. Kevin Germanier enjoys mixing tradi­tional tech­niques with modern, color­ful, and original forms that stand out from every­day life.

Another very import­ant aspect of his work is “upcyc­ling.” This English word is close to the French word “recycler, ” as it means recov­er­ing an object or a mater­ial in order to give it a new use and make it more valu­able. This is precisely what gives the exhib­i­tion its name, Les Monstrueuses. What was going to be thrown away and would have been a piece of waste, a kind of monster, becomes a magni­fi­cent outfit. Humans have prac­ticed this type of recyc­ling for a long time. In fash­ion, however, things have changed greatly over the past few decades: clothes are becom­ing cheaper and are no longer designed to last very long. This leads to ever more consump­tion and pollu­tion. Kevin Germanier instead encour­ages us to think about everything that could be reused, and he has a great deal of imagin­a­tion. He does not seek to rein­vent a prac­tice that has always exis­ted—re­pair—but rather to high­light it and bring it back into focus.

Observe the photo below and try to guess what was used to create this outfit:

These aston­ish­ing shapes were made from recycled plastic bottles. The other outfit you can see, consist­ing of a top and a skirt, is made of glass and plastic beads in many differ­ent colors that were embroidered by hand. Imagine the amount of work required: it took several hundred hours of embroid­ery to achieve these texture and light effects.

The exhib­i­tion has many more surprises in store for you: a dress created using used pencils and pens from the Caran d’Ache brand, another made from 120 recycled aluminum cans, and yet another from party curtains and leftover Christ­mas shop-window decor­a­tions! You can also immerse your­self in an immers­ive universe entirely covered with beads.

This article was writ­ten in collab­or­a­tion with Carré Pointu, the small news­pa­per that is seri­ously funny.