Meet The Designer: New Fashion Narratives
For this year’s exhibition program, FASHIONCLASH invited four fashion makers to collaboratively develop the curatorial concept for New Fashion Narratives at Bureau Europa. Earlier this year, they took part in a residency week in Maastricht, which led to the creation of this year’s curatorial framework. The exhibition, titled Collective Movements, is curated by Jonas Zitter, Paula Dischinger, Rafael Kouto, and Tjerre Lucas Bijker, and explores how fashion can act as a tool for connection, resistance, and collective action — operating at the intersection of fashion design, activism, and communal practice. The curators aim to present works that transcend dominant systems by embracing cultural rituals, shared knowledge, and collaboration.
This vision came to life through projects that prioritized co-creation and community engagement. Alessandro Santi & Brankica Sanadrovic presented The Memory of Skin, using participatory body casting sessions and living SCOBY materials to reflect the interdependence between microbial cultures and human relationships. mare mito showcased A Sewing Machine of One's Own, developed with women from a social sewing workshop in Naples, celebrating garments inherited from grandmothers and empowered by generations of women. CIMO from Croatia displayed an archive of over 100 embroidered pieces created in therapeutic workshops with asylum seekers, Ukrainian refugees, and elderly locals, reflecting the overlooked labor of women's handcrafts.
Cultural resistance and activism manifested through Mariia Pavlyk's Spero, connecting Ukrainian Tripillia–Cucuteni symbolism with traditional Hutsul weaving techniques, and Kantamanto Social Club, which presented upcycling activations in collaboration with communities across Ghana, Canada, Egypt, and India. The Platform transformed a garden fence into monumental angel wings displaying a collaborative collection by eight designers, while G(end)er Swap invited participants to hack the binary through DIY customization, centering textiles as tools for self-expression and resistance.
The exhibition also featured interactive works that challenged conventional fashion systems: Kim Gemmink's In The Corners Of A Circle offered a collection without defined looks, Giada Lou Hammel's DREIHUT critiqued smartphone culture through collective movement, and Hannah Smith's The Gentle Frame explored disability through wearable art. Karl Joonas Alamaa & Lisette Sivard documented the 125-kilometer performative fashion show MANIA GRANDIOSA, questioning fashion's obsession with novelty.
Through these diverse practices, Collective Movements demonstrated fashion's potential as a radical tool for building community, preserving memory, and imagining alternative futures
