Ruben Arnaldo Gollin is defending opulence

Needless to say, Ruben’s graduate collection, Girls with Guns, is a personal statement. Visual research is the designer’s starting point: gathering historical images, archetypes, and references across art, architecture and fashion. He creates a sharp and distinct style by reimagining and revising military uniforms from the Napoleonic period. “Historical military attire is hybridised, ridiculed and rendered contemporary through denim.” Ruben expresses contemporary ideas of gender through recontextualising silhouettes, such as elongating sleeves and broadening the shoulders of tops. “I’m proposing a new contemporary uniform where the wearer’s silhouette becomes indistinguishable and exaggerated,” he says.

When asked about his time studying, he says there were “Lots of ups and downs.” Ruben encountered periods of self-doubt about his work during his Fashion Design BA at Basel Academy of Art and Design. But when he stopped thinking about what his peers thought of his work, he became more confident about his designs. Straight after his bachelor’s, he pursued an MA in Fashion Design at IFM to push himself further creatively and technically. He found the tutors and class culture in his MA more welcoming. “I think it is the maturity of the class. There is competition, but it is different from my bachelor’s; it’s supportive competition.”

Girls with Guns was his first time working with womenswear, and it allowed him to develop techniques with denim, a key material in his BA graduate collection. Denim is one of his favourite fabrics to work with because of its rigid nature. “The heavier the denim, the more I like it. It gives lots of room for interpretation in terms of treatments and manipulation.” The denim in the collection is purposely not altered too much, as Ruben wanted to keep it true to the historical military uniform. “I mainly wanted to play around with the details of the passementerie: washing, dyeing and lasering denim to create ribbons and bands as an embellishment and drawing connections to these ceremonial uniforms.”

“I like clean shapes with embellishments.”

The title of his collection derives from – unsurprisingly – imagery of women holding guns. “The images were powerful but also misleading. There is lots of emotion, which I wanted to replicate.” Curation of mood is important; the garments and models have attitude. “It is very badass, but it is also bizarre.” Ruben’s key strength is his styling sensibility, which he thinks about from the outset. The designer sketches the silhouette, envisioning texture and the overall styling of the piece, before delving into 3D development. Once the concept has been created, he thrives on embedding embellishments and decorative adornments into his work, inspired by the opulence and grandeur of the Baroque period. “I like clean shapes with embellishments.”

Does Ruben think that university can prepare students for the industry? Not fully, as he thinks most skills are learned on the job. The designer doesn’t see this as a bad thing, reflecting on how IFM  provided valuable opportunities to learn from industry leaders, undergoing a mentorship and creative guardian from Olivier Theyskens and working on a creative project with Dior and Maria Grazia Chiuri. The hardest part for Ruben was the transition from his graduation project to his internship at Y/ Project. “Letting go of my graduation project was a challenge. I worked very intensely, and when it stopped abruptly, I felt like I was in a hole. I had to get out of a depression and get used to not working on my own things anymore.”