How Annemarie Saric is making luxury available for all with her MA collection

Her answer, “It’s always a tube.” Analysing the garment and its relationship with the body, the tubular deduction prompted Saric, like the engineers behind the latest automobiles, to question the shapes we’re conventionally accustomed to, by expanding or altering their proportions as far from the ordinary as possible. In a collection titled ‘Luxus Für Alle’ – luxury for everybody – Saric plays host to a commentary on the meaning of luxury today. “I found the name in an advertisement, but it really questions what luxury actually means. For me, it’s become such a shallow thing sometimes.” By her definition, Saric suggests luxury has sometimes become too ornamental and excessive – the impetus behind her minimalist approach. “I don’t want to distract. In my previous years I’ve always been a bit more decorative, but I don’t want to take the attention away from the clothes. It feels almost like cheating when you just slap a lot of decoration on top.”

Pursuing a softer method, the spectacle falls on the silhouette, spanning draped lycra gowns, cinched suits and a latex cocoon dress. The latter originated from an airbrushed advertisement of a woman wrapped in fabric with flowers printed on top by Japanese artist Harumi Yamaguchi. Gripped by the overall profile rather than the minutiae of detail, Saric begins with a rectangle. “It’s a very simplified version of a pattern. I begin making incisions to the shape, so then there’s actually no fabric loss either.” For instance, a seafoam green dress that drapes around the body, “Looks quite complicated but is actually really simple. It’s just one piece of fabric.”

“ It’s about seeing where my research takes me and how I can translate that. I just want people to feel excited.”

Gesturing toward the automobiles undertone, her ‘Car Coat’ look deviates from the traditional approach to tailoring that’s often done in wool and instead uses lycra. “It’s because you can go really tight with the silhouettes,” she explains, mirroring the streamlined shapes of the futuristic cars.  While Saric’s approach is a visionary one, her creative process follows a different pathway, enticed by the written word. “Whenever I go to a city when I’m travelling, I go to the library or search through fashion magazines.” The titles of the editorials are what capture her interest; where hyperbolic phrases like ‘Extreme Glamour’ or ‘Fashion Mystery’ provoke her to translate their message from text to textiles. Sifting from page to page, a sporadic approach to her research seems to be the method behind Saric’s work. “It’s about seeing where my research takes me and how I can translate that. I just want people to feel excited. Like when I look back into the history books, there are certain things that make me excited,” such as the works of Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela, who she greatly admires.

“You feel so much more secure in your MA. You’ve made two collections now; whereas before, you were so afraid of failing.”

Turning the page back in Saric’s own history book, an interest in fashion never materialised through a revelation or a precise moment, but it was rather “something that was just always there.” Saric, raised in Vienna, attended a specialised fashion high school growing up. “It was like a normal school for the most part, but we had design lessons and drawing lessons too. You could choose your department – I did dressmaking – so that’s where I learnt to stitch and make patterns, which was really useful when I came to Antwerp.” In its unconventional setting, housed in an Austrian castle, Saric chuckles in hindsight at her nostalgic beginnings. “The location was amazing, but also, in Austria, you get the opportunity to go to a specialised school after you’re fourteen or so. You get your A Levels but you basically learn a profession too.” Enticed by the affordable programme at such a notorious institution, Saric pursued the pathway in Antwerp, completing both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. The latter boosted her design process, “You feel so much more secure in your MA. You’ve made two collections now; whereas before, you were so afraid of failing.”

“It would be my biggest advice to other students: do the internships. I want to know how a company works; learning when to ask the right questions; figuring out how to work with other people.”

Saric’s intrepid spirit was certainly challenged by the pandemic. With collections due to be finished in June, and with no plans for postponement, she notes how the change in pace prompted her independence. “I didn’t have time so it made me realise that going forward, I’m going to create whatever I want to do in the time I have.” Throughout the speed-up process, Saric came to realise that starting her own label, a popular rite of passage to many graduates, was not in her pipeline yet. “In Antwerp, we never had to do any internships, so this is the first time for me working somewhere,” she shares on life after graduation. “It would be my biggest advice to other students: do the internships. I want to know how a company works; learning when to ask the right questions; figuring out how to work with other people.”

Despite the current disposition of the world, Annemarie Saric doesn’t feel disheartened at her untimely entrance into the chaos experienced throughout the industry this year. If anything, it’s the opposite. “I think it’s a little boring. I feel like a lot of people are playing it very safe and trying to please too much, somehow. It feels like something is missing, and not just because of the pandemic, although people are a little lost.” A lack of universal navigation might be apparent right now, but one thing is for sure; Annemarie Saric joins the graduating designers of 2020 who are veering off the beaten track to carve a new and overdue one.