Since I had a deadline myself on Wednesday and I wasn’t able to work in between the 11,5 hours stint on Tuesday I worked on my own collection until 4 AM. It’s always a bit challenging to change your mindset and to be productive after so many hours of work, but I managed. I set my alarm on 6 AM and worked a few hours before my first appointment at 9 AM in school. I knew all along that this would be my last deadline (!) for a really long time, so it was fine for me. #icansleepwheniamdead

Summer!

First one up on Wednesday was Latvian student Jevgenija Jurkevica. Her collection is inspired by insects, and she studied macro images to achieve her shapes and construction. Inspired by the mesh-like eyes of bugs, the main fabric she’s working with is tulle, in soft pink, white, black, bright orange and Yves Klein blue. She cuts each and every one of the multiple layers in different shapes and finish them all off with contrast coloured satin ribbons. To create a 3D effect we are working on the gradual fading tulle creates when you layer it upon each other. The contrasting ribbons make a very interesting effect as they increase in intensity and overlap each other. Her finished pieces will have much more layering and as you can see on her prototypes there are several notes to indicate the number of layers - AKA this is just a fraction of the amount the real pieces will have! To balance out the excessive use of tulle, we have decided to work on a light taupe coloured fabric for her constructed pieces. This will not fight for attention with the tulle details and it will also bring out the immaculately cut patterns. Interesting work.

Anna Pogudz was up next with her cute rendition of Where the Wild Things Are. Her silhouettes are based on how she portrays the characters in the book and she works with bonded synthetic furs, coated velvets, tie-dye faux suede and bright coloured underlayers complimented with different tones of pastels. Each silhouettes is based on different types of menswear, i.e. the overall. duffle coat, trench, single and double breasted coats, and she works tailoring into drop-shoulder padded kimono sleeves. The silhouettes are straight-cut and comfy with rounded off shoulders and hips contrasted by angular cuts and big cargo-pockets.I just want to snuggle up in that drawstring overall next winter. So cute!

The last collection to see on Wednesday was Dagmara Stawiarska. Dagmara has been through a few different collections since we started in March, but she’s now working on her original inspiration which is Egon Schiele and Death Becomes Her [FYI my favourite movie and literally how Heaven Tanudiredja and I will grow old]. She is basing her collection on plastic surgery and body modification, and she’s molding and gathering tones of nude leathers in different thicknesses to create the appearance of human skin. The leather pieces are big and architectural and combined with silk georgettes to create long, dramatic and decadent silhouettes. There’s a thin line between kitsch and quirky, so I’m definitely looking forward to see how this turns out (!).

After Dagmara I literally had an hour to head downtown, print all my lookbooks, my recent work and press clippings and post everything before my flight back to Belgium. Luckily, as my polish is rather rusty, Ewa Stepnowska offered to join me in the taxi if we could discuss her colours and fabric choices on the way. Clever girl ;)

I said goodbye to my students and my dear colleagues Janusz Noniewicz, editor in chief of K Mag, and Marta Kalinowska, fashion stylist at Polish Harper’s Bazaar, and we headed off downtown. I’m so glad Ewa joined me, because without her I wouldn’t even be able to print, let alone send anything! In the end Ewa had to call me a taxi and she amazingly shipped and paid everything while I headed off to the airport.

Dziekuje, Ewa!

After a few hours of travelling and a train back home I was finally back in Antwerp, and best of all: the day after I would have my 1^st day off since JANUARY!!

I slept for 14 hours and spent the whole day watching trash reality shows in a grey tracksuit and I loved every. single. second. of. it.

Sooo... This is my last post (this time around) for Belmodo, so thank you all for following me these past weeks! Hope you had as much fun as I did!

I love the Belmodo team and I’m a HUGE Tiany Kiriloff fan, can’t think of anyone that fits my clothes as well as her, so I hope I’ll be dressing that missy forever and hopefully I’ll be back with the Belmodo team again soon!

Photo courtesy of www.le21-eme.com

Photos courtesy of www.instagram.com/belmodotiany

Photo courtesy of www.firenze4ever.luisaviaroma.com

If you still want to keep updated, make sure to follow me on Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter.

A Facebook page is also in the making, so see you soon there too ;) Big kiss to you all!

xxx Damien

Finally it was time to go back to Warsaw and see my students again! After 3 weeks of absense it was really necessary to see their progress and to solve whatever problems they were having with their collections. This school year has been a bit of a challenge for the girls, as they arrived back from internships at, amongst others, Marc Jacobs in New York and Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders and Richard Nicoll in London, and straight back to making a small capsule collection for June the 3rd. It was extra challenging due to my absense while in Hyères, but no one holds your hand in fashion, so pushing yourself is simply the best way to learn.

I always sit at the aisle, easy on/off and more leg room, so I let people fight over the window seats ;)

Odbiór bagatu / Wyj?cie do miasta / Wózek zostaw tutaj. I’m back!

I arrived at Chopin Airport at 9 PM on Monday and after picking up some dinner - AKA a Snickers bar and some cashews - I took a taxi downtown. The apartment is right next to the Academy, so it's really easy to commute to work. A quick sashay across the courtyard and you're there.

Since we had to go through weeks of work - designs, fitting of prototypes, fabric selections and treatments - we decided to split the class over 2 days, 5 students on Tuesday and 3 on Wednesday, so I will split the blog over 2 days as well.

Compared to rainy Belgium, summer had already arrived in Warsaw. I could smell the trees and flowers blossoming as I walked to school in the morning. I almost forgot how summer feels like.. It's so nice!!

I don’t want to spoil the beans before the students’ jury in, so I will only show a small selection of each student and explain their collections. Bear in mind that these are all prototypes, so the real pieces will look completely different! I’d love to do a special report from the jury itself on the 3rd of June, but until then, here’s a small preview:

First girl up was Julia Ewa Kaleta. Julia's collection is inspired by the Freemasons and she’s recreating lace by weaving strips of leather on 3D layering of silicone coated mesh. Her collection plays on the aspects of feminine and masculine and she’s working on inverted tailoring and volumous pleating. Her colours are feminine, but the silhouettes are rather masculine in shape and structure. Julia has a tendancy to lean towards the feminine side of fashion, so I’m pushing her to discover masculinity and to find the right balance between masculine and feminine details. She did a good job, so I’m curious to see the finished pieces.

Next up was Zosia Ufnalewska. Zosia’s collection is inspired by brutalism and 70s skiwear, so we’re playing on big constructed overlayers in concrete-coloured felt and coated wools with multiple layered inserts of semi-transparent nylons and metallic coated woven polyurethane. The over layers are rather ‘brutal’, with oversized shapes and molded sleeves, but they are balanced out by subtle underlayers with layers-upon-layers of even toned fabrics in metallic silver and pastels.The quirky 70s is translated into high waisted ‘concrete’ wool bell bottoms, skirts, shorts and dresses. It’s brutally refined, so I’m looking forward to the jury.

Kasia Skórzynska’s collection is inspired by russian constructivism and the indian artist Nandan Ghiya. Her shapes have a two dimensional straight-cut constructivist approach, but to break the flatness she builds up her garments with tailored hand-sewn 3D cuts. Kasia is also developing her own brightly coloured hand painted prints, which she again breaks up geometrically and shifts with clever patternmaking and overlapping mesh. The collection has a nonchalant approach to it, which is a nice contrast to the strict shapes and excessively cut pieces. Will be interesting to see the final pieces in print! (The print on the jacket is not hers, it’s just a prototype fabric.)

Next student to show her work was Joanna Wawrzynczak with her samurai inspired collection. Joanna has been working on developing the samurai warrior into modern hi-tech silhouettes, contrasting the shapes with a wide range of intricately cut fabric developments in black and white Prince of Wales check and multiple hand embroidered polyurethane flower and beading. The samurai suit is developed into strict armour overlayers inspired by the japanese dô, paired with exessively pleated skirts and massive double layered trousers developed from an original samurai pattern. Can’t wait to see it in real.

The last student to show her collection on Tuesday was Ewa Stepnowska. Ewa was also inspired by japanese clothing, but more specifically the obi and she paired it with the Chinese hanfu and... Twin Peaks. Her idea was that a person had a dream where she found herself in the Red Room [from Twin Peaks] and somehow travelled through time to the 1930's Japanese puppet state in China, Manchukuo. Quirky, but fun! Ewa is developing 3 layers of her silhouettes - silicone printed black bodysuits based on the Red Room and chinese traditional paintings, geometrically raw-cut nude neoprene mid-layers and big pleated kimonos with angular molded sleeves, contrasted oversized pockets and big obi-bows connected through clever patternmaking. Looking forward to see this in real.

After 11,5 hours in school, LOADS of information and a hungry stomach it was finally time to go home, have some dinner and.. continue to work on my own work. Fashion seriously never stops!

Luckily the supermarket close to school is open till 10 PM, so I could grab some food and make some dinner. I love the woman working behind the meat section - she doesn’t understand a word of english and after trying to explain chicken for a few minutes she always gives me pork. I only know how to say dziekuje [thank you], so I guess it’s time to work on my polish if I want to eat a decent dinner in the future;)

xxx Damien

The good thing about cancelling Paris was that I could see one of my best friends, Glenn Martens, and his BF, Rich Aybar, who were in Belgium for a few days to present Glenn's costumes for the ‘Binnenstebuiten’ delegation of de Heilige Bloedprocessie in Bruges. As you probably already know, I'm a sucker for metallics, so needless to say, I loved the outfits. Well done, Glenn!

Fabrics are very essential for me for designing and I was still really bummed I couldn't make it to Paris, so Friday morning I called A. Boeken in Amsterdam to check if they were open on Saturday. They were, so I immediately booked a ticket and told Yvonne Kwok and Chi Gar Fung I would be in town for a few hours. Hyères reunion!

Yvonne is the super sweet little dutchie that won the Palais de Tokio award in Hyères with her amazing collection 'We Dance Like Little Mary’s Swaying to the Symphony of Destruction'. Hot off her win at last year's Lichting, this girl has a bright future. Keep your eyes open for her upcoming projects, there are exciting things happening soon!

Photo © Anita Krizanovic at modabot.de.

Photo © Filep Motwary at filepmotwary.com.

Even though there might be a long way to go still, I feel Dutch fashion in general is starting to catch up a little with their neighbours to the south and across the Channel. I'm also very intrigued by the way fashion is being funded and supported in Holland. There's a lot of energy and will to make fashion work over there and it could be a thing to think about for Belgium too. Belgium still has the great names and reputation, but we also need more support for young designers and the future generations who are really struggling financially. #speakingofexperience

I read an article on the train that there are in fact new funds being set up, which is great, but after Helsinki won for the second consecutive year in Hyères I also read several places that 'Finland is the new Belgium'. If you ask me, Finland has always been great in design, so I'm just happy they finally get the recognision they deserve, but it shows you can't rest on your laurels, Belgium. I’d love to see some initiatives where young designers are involved and people from across platforms come up with solutions together.

Speaking of Belgian fashion - the poster for the SHOW2013 was recently released, I can't wait to see all the amazing collections.

On Friday I met up with Glenn and Rich in Antwerp and after some rosé in my apartment we headed off to Lucy Chang for dinner and a drink in Vitrin. After being M.I.A. from going out, for what feels like an eternity, it was nice to see Antwerp on a Friday night again:)

After some more whiskey and a few hours of sleep I made myself purdy on Saturday morning and headed off to Amsterdam. I actually would've missed my train, but luckily it was delayed by 10 minutes, so I grabbed a double shot iced soy latte at Starbucks first. I hate Starbucks coffee, but it wakes you up.

After a delayed train, sudden connection change in Essen, a batshit crazy woman [why me??], half an hour wait in Roosendaal and the fastest connection-run ever in Rotterdam (!) I finally met up with the girls in Amsterdam. It was rainy as usual, so we had a lovely 2 hour lunch at Bagels & Beans before we headed off for some fabric sourcing. Well, I did the sourcing, but the sweeties waited for me while I was trying to figure out the new temporary location of A. Boeken in Nieuwe Hoogstraat 3a.

It's not a huge store, but I like their selection of fabrics and endless variations of haberdasheries. You can also get latex in all the colours of the rainbow here too and this is where I bought the transparent pink latex for my SS13.

Cute display at the counter. An ode to grandma A. Boeken.

They also have lots of 3D spacer here, but I get mine directly from Marcel Liebaert in Deinze. We have been working together since I won the competition to design the Biennale Interieur 2012 uniforms and we continued to work together on SS13 and the complimentary bodywear collection. I absolutely love their fabrics and the sweet Joan Bebronne.

Photos © by Koen Vernimmen at koenvernimmen.com.

I'm planning a shoot of the bodywear with Koen Vernimmen and hopefully we will make some new pictures together very soon. I really love working with Koen and I look forward to keep doing great things together in the future. Check out his work on www.koenvernimmen.com and contact him if you need a photographer. Highly recommended!

After A. Boeken I said goodbye to Yvonne and Chi (who was going home to bake delish maccaroons for mother's day) and I went to Albert Cuypmarkt. It's always too crowded and the shops aren't that great, but in some of them I always find something interesting.

I like to combine high end fabrics with less expensive fabrics, so I always think it's good to check out shops you maybe think you don't like. This time I was in a hurry, so I just grabbed what I could find (more going for colour than the fabric itself) and headed back to the train station.

At around 9 PM I was back home again and by 12 AM I was already in bed. Can't remember the last time I went to bed at 12 AM, but it's definitely pre- Academy times! At 6.30 AM my damn biorythm decided to wake me up though, so by 7 AM I was already back at work. With TONS of new fabrics.

Lekker werken!

xxx Damien

Sorry for the late update, but things have been a bit busy the past few days. I’m pretty much locked up in my atelier again, but hey, at least it’s sunny!

I’m already busy with the next collection, but as usual there are more than enough of other things that need to be done simultaniously - like answering never-ending emails (which is pretty much what I spend most of my days) and guiding my students before next week’s lessons. I need a PA!

March and April were pretty crazy, normally I go to Warsaw twice a month, but due to Hyères we had to push several dates ahead and I ended up going every week for the last month. The other days I worked in RA, which pretty much left one day a week in my atelier for all the preparations. Cray cray timez.

I was supposed to be in Warsaw this Monday, but we had to postpone it untill next week, so we’re catching up on Skype. They’ve been werqin really hard since I last saw them, but the jury is the 4th of June, so time is ticking very fast...

Checking the toiles of Anna Pogudz.

I’ll do a big post about all my students and their work next week, so stay tuned for some amazing work by the 3BA crew!!

Speaking of amazing work, one of my dear interns came to help me out the other day!

Basten Basstanie is an MA student at KASK in Gent and he did an internship with me in April. I’m pretty obsessed with precision and details, and I already warned him before he started that I count half millimetres, but he did a pretty bloody effing good job.

Apart from suffering some traumas in the beginning [read all about it in the latest ELLE], he stitched, made pattern, draped, cut and bonded fabrics with amazing precision and endless dedication. As long as he gets his coffee in the morning and some carbs during the day he’s an amazingly hard worker and I can FULLY recommend him for anyone looking for an intern or a designer when he graduates next year.

After some bubbles on the roof with Géraldine we all went for some frozen yoghurts in the beautiful weather and I finally enjoyed my first full day of doing n.o.t.h.i.n.g. since I returned. #BLISS

I was planning a trip to Paris for fabric sourcing this Friday, but since it’s a bank holiday on Thursday and I’m pretty sure the Frenchies will take a long weekend, I decided to do a pre-sourcing in Belgium instead. Yeah. We’re probably thinking the same, but it’s better than nothing!

Antwerp has a disappointingly bad offer of fabrics for being a fashion capital, so I headed over to Den Boom in Lier. It’s not Paris, but textures and colours are always a good start to a collection. At least the offer is humongous and I easily spent a few hours there.

Back in town I continued working on the new visual profile of my label with Michiel De Vreede and I’m super happy with how things are going! Michiel is a talented Dutch graphic designer based in Berlin and a good friend of mine. We’ve been working on the new profile for a while, but due to all the work we both had we had to put it on hold for a while.

We hope to launch the shiny new www.damienravn.com very soon though, but until then, here’s a tiny teaser:

Check out Michiel’s work on www.michieldevreede.nl

More on Michiel and the new site later! I’m expecting visitors tomorrow, so I’m off to bed;) Slaap zacht!

xxx
Damien

After a few hours of sleep it was time to return the van and put an end to our amazing roadtrip to Côte d’Azur and back. I met with my sidekick Géraldine around 13:00 and we headed off to Valko in Wilrijk. Both suffering from the Hyères-blues, it was kind of sad to put an end to it all, but life moves on. Like I tell my students, fashion never takes a break;)

It was time to get my ass down to Kleine Markt 7/9 - the brand spanking new location of RA! I was already more than fashionably late, so the whole RA crew already got most things done.. but a late hand is better than no hand, non?

I knew the gallery Objectif Exhibitions on the ground floor, but it was actually the first time I was going to see the new location, which sits on the 1st floor above the gallery. I heard lots of stories from Yves de Brabander, the store manager of RA, but it was even better in real! I love the entrance to the courtyard, it’s kind of disguised and gives you a bit of a New York feeling (even though I’ve never been there).

photo courtesy of Romain Brau’s instagram 

The store turned out to be exactly what we all wanted RA to be too. The first thing you notice is of course that it’s more intimate, but that’s what we were looking for. I loved the previous location, but it was simply too big. I for one won’t be missing running from the inner room of the store and up to get a pair of shoes, just to run back to fit them for then to run back up to get a different size. #justsaying

I love the loft-feeling the new store has. The ceiling lights are really cool and there’s much more natural light as well, so I won’t be crying over Kloosterstraat. Maybe just Mic’s café and the food of Lobsang and the DELISH cakes of Ciara. Well, those cakes made me fat as hell, so scrap that last part!

Romain Brau and Puck Gall working hard.

The space really looks great, I can’t wait for people to come and see it. Words travel quickly in Antwerp, so several people already wanted to come shopping while we were working, so it looks like the address change wont be difficult to adjust to at all.

People anyway come to Antwerp just to shop at RA, so from now on we’ll be waiting in Kleine Markt 7/9, 2000 Antwerp instead of Kloosterstraat 13. See you all there!! Do check the RA website for all information!

photo courtesy of Romain Brau’s instagram

Since this was after all the Koninginnendag and the day Prins Willem and Princess Maxima became King and Queen of the Netherlands AND the day my dear Puck left Antwerp for Paris, we went celebrating afterwards!

Puck being as Dutch as they get, she was already sporting a pimped up bright orange shirt, so after dinner we headed over to De Vagant and started downing Jenevers with Géraldine for Willem, Maxima and Beatrix.. and for Paris, the future, happiness, success and godknowswhat;)

Proost!

xxx Damien

We may not have won a prize, but like Style.com’s Tina Isaac said in her article ‘In Hyères, Everyone’s A Winner’! Meanwhile, several finalists showed pieces that stood out in their own right, such as the leather jackets by the Russian-Latvian duo Victoria/Tomas, or Norwegian designer Damien Ravn’s rendition of medieval armor as an evening dress. For a young designer, that is the big takeaway at Hyères: You may or may not score a place in the sun, but you’ve definitely moved onto the radar.’

True that:)

photo courtesy of M. Laurelli of L’Express

photo courtesy of Giovanni Savi of IO Donna

After the showroom was finished we rushed for the 2nd day of shows and after packing up the collections and freshening up at the hotel we headed to a massive after party by the beach where my whole Paris crew of friends were waiting for me! LOTS of kisses to Glenn, Maja, Annabel, James, Steph, Fred, Rain, Robin and all the others that came all the way from Paris to support me!! Steph hashtagged the weekend the #worstweekendever because of the weather, but I’m sure that little drama queen had fun;)

After Sunday’s last show, another amazing rainy party by the beach, Glenn’s big ol’ 3-0 bday, an after party at their villa and a walk of shame back with a GPS in the morning - just in time for breakfast - it was time to wrap it up...

Kinda sad that it was over so quickly, but we had such fun! We met so many amazing people, we experienced so many nice things, we worked our asses off and it was SO worth it!!

A BIG congrats to - the one and only - winner of the Premiere Vision Grand Jury Prize Satu Maaranen. I knew you would win since I saw the polaroids of your fitting - well deserved! Another congrats to Camille Kuntz for the beautiful Chloé silhouette, to Shanshan Ruan for her Public of Hyères Award, Marion de Raucourt for the Camper Award and last, but not least, to my homegirl Yvonne Kwok for the Palais de Tokio Award!

CONGRATS!

After a quick brunch at the Villa we hugged goodbye to the sweet Laure Grandon, packed the van and headed downtown for a last lunch with the whole crew. Thank you for everything guys and all the best of luck to all of you in the future! See you soon!!!

xxx Damien.

Back in Antwerp! After twelve wonderful days in Hyères and an 11 hours car ride we arrived back in Belgium at 06:00 on Tuesday morning. Even though we returned empty handed, we had a wonderful time and I only have amazing memories of our stay. Here’s a recap.

I left for Hyères at 06:00 on April 17, 2013 together with my assistant Géraldine Barton and we shared a van with another finalist, Yvonne Kwok and her assistant Chi Gar Fung. Yvonne won the Palais de Tokio award, so the car wasn’t completely ripped of trofees when we crossed the Belgian border;)

After a few wrong turns, some missed exits and 15 long hours in a van, we arrived safely in Hyères. The first week was just beautiful. #sunny #23degrees #diorhommesandals #shorts #tanktop #justsaying

The first few days all the finalists and assistants worked on finishing their collections or presentations and since I’m slightly obsessed with handwork and I was juggling two jobs on top of the Hyères preparations, we still had some (aka a lot) of hand sewing to finish on the inside of the bodywear collection I to compliment my collection.

Géraldine and I decided to turn our hotel room into an atelier and it worked pretty well! I think we ended up spending most of our time in our hotel room, so unfortunately we weren’t the most social ones in the beginning, but at least we got to see the others during lunch at the beautiful Villa Noailles. Built in 1923, the villa sits on top of a mountain overlooking the city of Hyères - literally the greatest view in town. It’s one of the first modernist buildings in France and it’s such an iconic building with just as amazing history. Click here to read more about it. Has to be experienced!

On April 19, 2013 we had our first appointment with Maida Gregori Boina and her team. Maida is one of the most respected and sought after casting directors in the world and it was amazing to work with her. On Friday we presented our collection, arranged the running order and checked the styling of the collection. The triple sole Wulfrun creepers I designed for Underground Shoes arrived JUST in time for the meeting and I had them in my hands literally 5 minutes before I entered La Salle Familia!

On Saturday we went to Les Pesquiers to see the show venue for the first time and we rehearsed the choreography to our music. Most of the massive chandeliers that made up the decor of the runway were still in boxes, but it already looked very impressive!

On Monday we had our first fitting with a model to check fit, assign models to each look and to make sure the running order was ok. It was pretty hectic, so I only managed to snap two pictures, but luckily everything fit sweet Tyna Tomanova perfectly.

On Tuesday we met with the light and scenography crew and we decided on the look of our shows. Since my music is light and it builds up slowly, we decided on a rather strong look of the show to get a contrast to the music.

On Wednesday we had the final fitting of our collections with all the models at Les Pesquiers and we rehearsed the full show with the models wearing the shoes of the collection. So nice to see!!

My appointment was originally at 17:45, but I think we only left Les Pesquiers at around midnight that night. Fashionably late;)

On Thursday we had a jury rehearsal and practiced our choreography for the presentation and tried explaining our collection to Maida, Laure and Julie. After the rehearsal at Villa Noailles we went back to Les Pesquiers and did the fitting of our silhouettes for the Chloé award and we checked our hair and makeup. The Chloé silhouette looked super cute on the Czech beauty Margita, so I was very happy to see the whole lineup!

After the fitting a BIG ass paella was waiting for us #justsaying

After dinner we continued with hair and makeup together with the L’Oreal team. We decided on a nude and fresh-faced makeup with glossy lips and bushy brows. Since the clothes are quite rigid we wanted to keep the hair loose in the front to get some movement, but we braided it a bit nonchalanty mediaval in the back. Looked amazing!

THE BIG DAY

Finally Friday 26th! We all met in Villa Noailles at 08:45 and the jury arrived at 10:00. The president of the jury this year was Felipe Oliveira Baptista, who won the competition back in 2002. The rest of the jury consisted of big industry names like Mark Holgate, fashion news director of Vogue US; Floriane de Saint Pierre, CEO of Floriane de Saint-Pierre & Associés Paris; Imran Amed, editor-in-chief The Business of Fashion; Paula Reed, fashion director Harvey Nichols; Delphine Roche, associate editor- in-chief Numéro; Maurice Scheltens, photographer; Liesbeth Abbenes, Photographer and Barbara Coutinho, director of MUDE Lisbon.

It was such an honour to get the chance to meet all of these people and to be able to present my work to them. Remembering everything you want to tell them is something else of course.. The list is THIS long, but usually only 1/3 comes out and you tend to leave out the most important things. At least I do.

photo courtesy of Paula Reeds twitter 

After presenting the collection we showed a selection of the nude coloured body wear collection tailored for each look. Since the inspiration for the collection was mediaval armour I drew inspiration from stained glass to create the bodywear. We developed our own bonded jerseys and cross bonded mesh (courtesy of Basten Basstanie) and we connected all the different parts with black velvet ribbons and TONS of hand sewing. As usual.

photo courtesy of Imran Amed’s Business of Fashion instagram

After the jury presentation we went to the see the press and presented the collection again in front of an audience of international journalists. It’s always easier to present things a second time, so even though there were twice as many people in a room half the size, it went kind of ok. I guess:)

photo courtesy of Getty Images on Vogue.de

photo courtesy of Modabot 

photo courtesy of Reto Scmid for i-D magazine 

After all the finalists had presented their collections and we had a beautiful lunch on the roof of Villa Noailles, we presented our Chloé look for the jury. First we sent in all the looks with all the designers following and then we did a short presentation one by one with all the looks present. What a difference in style! 10 completely different looks for Chloé.

photo courtesy of Filep Motwary for The Business of Fashion

After Chloé we packed all our collections up in boxes and headed directly to Les Pesquiers for the first show of the weekend! #sobloodyexciting!!!

I was number two in the running order, both for the jury and the show, after Marion de Raucourt, and honestly it’s very nice. In a snap it’s over and I can relax again. After spending four years at the Academy shows in Antwerp I’m pretty used to these hectic shows, but I have to say it went pretty smoothly in Hyères. It’s a great production!

#SHOWTIME!

photo courtesy of Saskia Lawaks

photo courtesy of Anthony Herbin of Joy in a Frame

photo courtesy of Damien Ravn

After all the collections of this year’s finalists and the returning winners of last year, Finnish trio Elina Laitinen, Siiri Raasakka and Tiia Siren, and the Estonian Ragne Kikas, were shown it was time for the Chloé looks. 

After Chloé everyone ran on stage for the finale! 1 day down, 2 to go!!

On Saturday we set up our showroom, which ran until Sunday, and it was a great opportunity to get to talk to each of the jury members up close.

The showroom is also open to the public, so at times it was pretty hard to be able to talk to people one-on-one, but hopefully I got to talk to everyone.

I met a lot of great industry people from all over the world and I received lots of amazing feedback, so hopefully it will lead to something.

Hyères for me is about being noticed and eventually (and hopefully) about opening doors, so fingers crossed I say!