It is that time of the year again where fashion enthusiasts in Belgium all come to catch a glimpse of the new talents that the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts has bestowed us. With an impressive jury including Simone Rocha, Olivier Theyskens and Tim Coppens, the students are ready to kick some SHOW2016 ass. Meet this year’s gang of graduates:

Emmanuel Ryngaert

Titled ‘Meccano’, Emmanuel Ryngaerts, one of the two actual Belgians graduating, has taken playful to another level by designing a collection that is literally playful. Working with primary elements such as the basic shapes that you can find in Meccano and Lego. The end result? A playful collection that can be endlessly adapted, connected, assembled and replaced.

Shone Puipia

Captivated by the works of the German avant-garde photographers Grete Stern, Shone Puipia wanted to create a collection that conveys fashion as a constructed world and a dreamscape. The collection starts with really white with frills in light cottons and frailly edges and ends with heavy textures and intense colors. With the help of a Thai company, Shone managed to create a new type of fur by felting different fibers and feathers. By adding this to his designs, the contrast between pure and animalistic truly brings Shone’s collection to life.

Jannike Sommar

Jannike Sommar’s MISS collection is inspired by women in prison who wear the same oversized clothing but have different personalities. More specifically, Jannike was inspired by the hit series ‘Orange is the New black’. While her collection screams powerful women, Jannike adds a sentimental part to her collection. She unconsciously tied the underlying emotions of missing someone in Orange is the New Black to her personal life. The end result is a love letter written to her girlfriend abroad that came out as embroideries on a dress.

Timo Zündorf

For Timo Zündorf, the way you dress and what you wear is very intimate. This is also the reason why it was important for him to make things by hand or personalize them. Timo morphed two photographs in one collection: an old image of August Sander of three well-dressed men in tailored suits and the other image of punks in London who are completely dressed up. “I like the idea that certao, clothing come with a meaning. They look the way they look because there’s a value behind them.”

 

Charlotte De Geyter-Pittoors

Titled ‘How to Catch Fish?’, her collection derives from one sentence in the article that stuck by her and perfectly describes her method of working: We catch fish faster than they procreate. Charlotte started thinking about what she wanted to design and so she came up with a collection that looks fragile and took time to make, by hand that is.

Jennifer Dols

Jennifer Dols’ final collection was partly inspired by the idealism of beauty and the story of La Belle et la Bête aka Beauty and the Beast by Jean Cocteau – something that might sound straight-forward at first. But her twist to the story is what makes her collection so intriguing to look at. From start to finish, the mixture of materials and building up of the textures adds a certain lightness and richness to her collection.