La Cambre MA 2024: Similar goals, different perspectives

Lillian Navarro

Lillian Navarro compares the idea of her final collection to the visual image of the UN General Assembly Hall. “I worked around the suit by confronting it with these visual resources, but in contrast to the uniformity that accompanies globalization,” she says. Her goal? To create a protocol wardrobe that dresses without complexity or norms, just like a person in a ceremony. “There are several concepts,” she says. “First, the continuation of my master’s work on cardboard, with folds, slits, and seamless garments using various systems.” She also introduced new concepts around patterns with cylindrical volumes. In one garment, the lining does all the talking by becoming a garment in its own right. “Part of the garment is removed through a circular cut, and the lining is extracted to complete it. This shows what we usually do not want to see. Like the Centre Pompidou by Renzo Piano, the interior is externalized and becomes the uniqueness of the piece.”

Gaïa Ignargiola

Based on a collection of images, Gaïa Ignargiola imagines her clothing to be worn in different settings. The images included visuals of worn-out countryside houses, damaged chairs and fossil garments. During the process of making, Gaïa wanted to stay true to the roots of the imagery and their messages. “Everything came from them, extracting principles and intertwining them in the technical aspects of the collection as well,” she says. “Even though this collection is the mirror of the knowledge I accumulated as a student, I wanted to challenge my approach. Trying to step away from some of my reflexes while continuing the research while staying close to my work was the biggest challenge.” Many students face a number of difficulties during their studies. Some of them find advice, and some help themselves. For Gaïa, it was always about moving forward. When faced with difficulty, “what matters the most is what you do next,” she finishes.

Tom Rambaud

Tom Rambaud’s graduate collection, “Coming of Age” is based on the notions of being immature and spontaneous. “The pieces evoke this visceral sense of self while still being legitimate through their technical execution,” he says. “The process of making the collection was mostly empirical, giving room to intuition, focussing on a macro level, turning the first idea inside out (sometimes literally) to find the next big step of the collection,” he says. “Allowing parts of the process to be the final thing in itself gave me a good range of creative movement.” As intricate this process was, Tom was also confronted with challenges. One of them being working with unconventional material – finding lasting solutions rather than a quick fix was hard, but he managed it. “Also to allow the concept to become more and more of a garment in itself after all is what it’s all about,” he adds. At the end, people should let their work speak for itself, he learnt – and his work definitely does.

Hyunju Park

“My final year collection is based on the fusion of technical wear and everyday clothing, combining different textures, colours and patterns,” says Hyunju Park. Specifically he was inspired by images depicting Haenyeo, which are the Grandma divers of South Korea. They have been lensed by the image maker Hysungun Kim, which comes with a deep sense of layering and juxtaposition. The making of the collection was heavily based on the development of the shape with his personal approach which he refined during his first year of the MA. Moreover, the layering of prints and patterns as well as the fabric manipulation of combining several layers of fabric and textural experimentation contributed to the collections’ overall outcome heavily too. The biggest challenge within this process was to find the right juxtaposition of colours, patterns, and textures. “These past five years in my school have been a challenging yet rewarding journey characterized by hard work and creativity,” Hyunju says. “I aspire to continue thriving in an environment that fosters innovation and constantly challenges me to discover new things. I look forward to being surrounded by individuals who, like those in my class, share similar goals but approach them from different perspectives.”

Célestin Verheyden

Célestin’s collection is all about the male wardrobe. In a way, it’s a celebration containing classic pieces like the jeans, classic trousers, plaid shirts, Harrington jackets, scout shorts, and lodens. “This collection does not illustrate a theme, but there’s an air of the countryside, discreet if not old-fashioned, expressed through heavy, sometimes raw materials in predominantly dark, earthy hues that evoke the soft light of rural plains,” he says. This very calm vision is getting disrupted with modern cuts, revealing primary, geometric shapes and folds of large solids, or the strategic use of zips. Célestin describes it as a sculptural and contemporary men’s wardrobe, inspired by rural sundresses, situated between pride and modesty. In terms of the collection design, the process was focussed on translating the 2D concepts and images into the actual garments. “Working with folded paper a lot, a large part of the work was to interpret the incidence of a body penetrating a flat plane. So, it’s a very fun and educational process in the end. Following folding constructions but on much larger surfaces, with softer and smoother materials. All with a play on the placement of dress codes,” he adds. Making a collection of this nature comes with a natural challenge, and for Célestin, finding a balance was challenging: “One of the biggest challenges was trying to strike the right balance between making the most of my skills and automatisms I’ve developed over the last few years without falling into a habit, while at the same time trying to push myself and go further. To push myself both creatively but also in terms of the thinking and structure of my pieces and my collection.”

Lucas Brunner

Breathless, in French Bout de Souffle, is the name of Lucas Brunner’s graduate collection. His collections include a lot of balloons, and therefore, the name was a given. “I had to inflate a lot of balloons, and because one of the silhouettes was a harmonica holder, you have to blow a harmonica,” he says. The themes are self-explanatory: balloons and instruments. “I thought the one-man band (homme orchestre) is not celebrated enough. It requires impossible skills to play a whole band’s music by oneself,” Lucas says. “So I thought I should make a collection to celebrate them.” That was the plan – and then the balloons came along. Have you ever been so inspired by something that it blew your mind? Well, that’s how Lucas felt about the balloons. And that is the story of how a one-man band got lost in an ocean of balloons. His biggest challenge during the process? The guitar, he says.