Fashion Graduates Chronicles: Wings to Fly - Part I
This newsletter gathering 25 young designers in a two-part essay is something I'm very proud of. Young talents who sketch their own future, but for now celebrate the enormous milestone that is their first collection under their own name. Something that in this case happens at the end of the first year of the Master's in Fashion Design at the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon.
We can all describe the faces of the main creative directors of the current Fashion System, but how many times have we seen photos of Fashion students, beyond images of their work?
Yes, social media, mainly Instagram, is full of imagery... but who are they, what have they done and where are they going? In the future, everyone will have time to hear so many opinions, criticisms and perspectives... now they make themselves heard, seen and read.
For practical reasons, I had to paraphrase the answers they gave me, to balance the length of all and each one. So that you who are reading me know what they have to say, since I was merely an editor, "paraphraser," transcriber...
And before this adventure begins I have to reveal to you what questions I asked these 25 magnificent ones (although today you only get to know 11. Right?
Here are the 5 questions exactly as I posed them:
Tell me about your collection. What is the concept? Or what was the inspiration? How did you conceptualize it?
How do you describe the execution process of the collection? The class, the breaks, the frustrations, the joys... Was there some sleeve that was harder to sew to the piece that you had to remake a thousand times and when you succeeded you were super happy? (Describe a similar situation). Emotionally, how was the process?
How did you feel on the day of the fashion show?
How did you feel after the fashion show?
Where do you imagine yourself in 3 years?
And now yes, hands to work, needle to fabric, foot on the gas and here we go.
Gustavo Calapez
The search for what would represent his first collection led Gustavo to deconstruct his own ego — in "Identity Crisis." He found the visual translation of his ideas in the meeting between ceramics and Rorschach test stains.
He highlights that the process was marked by iterations, somewhat inherent to the fact that he graduated in Product and Communication Design, also at FAUL, but it was from there that he brought many skills that enriched his final result.
"I went three nights without sleep, two of them in a row. But compared to those I did in undergrad, these were worth it."
Above all, he feels he fulfilled a long-held dream and goal. In terms of the day of the fashion show, he had with him his mother, colleagues and friends from the second year of the master's who helped him in making the collection.
As future goals, he wants to promote his work and, for now, the collection he's currently so proud of. He wants to launch himself under his own name, but at his own pace. He has well defined that competing for Sangue Novo will be a primary plan, as well as interning abroad and entering the job market.
He knows that his language will have to be adjusted to a more commercial market. Not ruling out the possibility of working on his own, he considers that, for his own system and process, he won't be able to do it exclusively.
Marta Roquete
While organizing the graphic language of her collection and the inherent photoshoots, something that interests her greatly, Marta tells me about the whole process, concept and related matters.
"Beetle" comes from simple childhood moments playing and admiring insects. That almost childlike quality was brought to the color palettes in materials like burel and denim — insect armor that doesn't cease to be fragile and leaves its mark... Like holes in clothes that are here valued by grommets.
She admits that the making process was more challenging than ideation, yet enriching, and is aware that what will remain in her memory won't be the broken needles or the all-nighters, but the moments of unity among the class.
"There's a certain comfort in being surrounded by colleagues who recognize our potential and help us achieve it."
For the young designer, in the context of a competitive industry like Fashion, it was comforting to have her colleagues' encouragement to reach her potential, with them being more aware of this than Marta herself.
Awareness is something whose importance shows through her discourse. From the conscious way she dedicated the last minutes of the fashion show to feeling proud of her work and all the other designers present, to the way she structures her future visions.
She would like to work abroad, at a brand in the materials area and connected to manual techniques like knitting. Being aware that, previously, she had already explored Portugal in terms of wool and had already done an internship that allowed her to learn more hand made techniques.
Angelica Russo
Emotional, tired and at the same time a mix of emotions - this was Angelica on that D-Day for everyone. But something was certain, Dystopia was in her collection, as theme and title, but was no longer lived in her own life. She feels the dystopia of anxious and depressed society and not only...
"I'm thinking about also like our world, like that it's full of like war, climate crisis, social injustice and we don't really do that much."
But in a way she also experienced it, during her undergraduate degree in Fashion Design in Florence, it was, for her, very theoretical and not personalized. She didn't feel fulfilled, on the contrary, she was trapped in her own routine life.
She fell in love with Lisbon during Erasmus, so this Master's had to happen.
Obviously, her process wasn't free of setbacks, here too there was trial-error and prototype repetition... And, despite the tears and fatigue, she's now free from the vicious cycle of dystopia she saw, both inside and outside herself.
Finding solutions for what she wanted to show under her name had to be, many times, independently... But not in a solitary way.
She has no doubts, in 3 years she'll be in Lisbon. Working in Fashion, maybe with her own brand and new collections. For now there's promoting the collection she just presented.
Matilde Romão
Coming from theater training, she decided to do the Master's in Fashion Design, influenced by the loss of her grandmother Amélia, a dressmaker by profession. Next she intends to enter the PhD in Art History.
"If I had a message to tell my colleagues (...) about the future, it's (...) don't get lost in the immensity (...) and stay true to what is your soul."
Inspired by photos of her two grandmothers, the 60s and figures like Twiggy, Patty Boyd and the Beatles, she conceptualized side B.
In her answers she gives great emphasis to her friend Joana, a seamstress who helped her in creating the final pieces. The prototypes were Matilde's responsibility and her domestic machine.
And, although the difficulty of the process is common to all, here there was an extreme situation - pieces too small to fit a model 24 hours before the fashion show, which ended up being resolved.
Already in ideation, she had difficulty distancing the Fashion and costume universes. Another issue she notes, which originates from her basic training - ease of drawing, but difficulty in transporting ideas to fabric.
Liyan Zhu
Emotionally, for Liyan, the process was varied, from enthusiasm to the stress of time management.
Time is crucial for her, in its different perspectives, from reinterpreting a cultural icon to the dedication she wants to have full-time to a slow fashion approach.
"The inspiration for this collection was traditional Chinese culture. I wanted to create exclusive fashion pieces instead of fast-fashion."
So she reinterpreted the traditional Chinese dress cheongsam, transporting this Chinese cultural memory to the social context of this contemporaneity, while still giving it femininity, bringing details that refer to this garment.
A garment that she transformed into Fashion, allowing new expressions of the human body. Something she achieved through not only signs inherent to clothing, but also contemporary modeling, mostly Western.
Focused on details and changes until the last minute, the final balance is positive with pride and happiness.
Regarding the future, the goals are clear and entrepreneurship is key. A space with her own curation and with her own brand with a diverse offering - her author Fashion brand in slow fashion format, ceramic decoration objects and crochet accessories. The geographic question is broad, as possibilities are between Portugal and Brazil.
Mariana Andrade
Perceiving herself as an independent Fashion Designer, the idealized future unfolds between a brand under her own name and teaching.
The process of a collection as students is anything but easy, but can be a leap of independence. For Mariana it was the first time she made pieces from start to finish alone... And, although they didn't turn out to be "perfect pieces" she moved forward and that's a source of pride. The tranquility of hand-made experiments in the first days would give way to the frantic substitution of such techniques for elastic stitching due to time constraints.
In the end even the 24 hours at the faculty to finish everything paid off, marking the end of the fashion show with a sigh of relief.
"I was inspired by the Suffragist movement (...) Without their struggle I couldn't be in college today, doing this master's."
Honoring the Suffragist movement, a struggle that should be remembered and, according to the designer, preferably with great style. In the color palette figured the colors of the movement's flag and in the modeling are elements that refer to the aesthetics and History of Fashion and Costume of that time.
The creative and ideation moments were "the good days."
Maria Miguel Borda
Sometimes, the most frustrating obstacles can take the form of almost 20 meters of white organza and a lighter... however well time is managed it continues to pass.
And passing, it transforms into a "Lyrical Metamorphosis" - the translation of its author's desire to explore the relationship between form, repetition and movement in the body.
"(...) like a photographer's lens that freezes movement, this collection celebrates the ephemeral, the gesture and the singular presence in time and space."
More than physical issues, the emotional and very present desire to be proud of what was her first collection made the project's climax an overwhelming feeling.
Between what is worn and what is read, Maria Miguel's future passes through creativity in Fashion. Whether at a Brand or a Fashion Magazine.
Just like the singular presence in time and space that her work celebrates, pride was also singular. Singular to the point of putting to sleep everything that wasn't as positive as what she felt. Now the distance at which she passed the lighter was no longer important, nothing would darken anymore.
Beatriz Silva
Romanticizing life is imperative for Beatriz, not that she's oblivious to everything the world is experiencing, but she hopes to contribute to the active role of Arts in building a better and more just society. At 22, not being passionate about digital, but about paper and physical publications... Influenced by "The Devil Wears Prada" and "Sex and The City" she hopes to combine fabric and printed word - basically Fashion, Design and Communication.
"I don't love working with computers, if they gave me a screen printing canvas and a sheet, I would be much happier, I love doing practical things and that's why I thought of this master's."
Constância, the town where the Zêzere and Tejo rivers cross, a place where alongside and in contrast with Lisbon created her character, her way of being. The translation of this universe in terms of ideation was evolutionary and far from immediate.
But Fashion was somehow within her, and although she didn't have all the necessary technical skills, since she graduated in Communication Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon.
Still, on the day she compares to the anxiety of a standardized test, without any "devil" and with her friends, this Andy was happy.
Ariana Orrico
Countering the fear of making mistakes helped maintain calm as a constant. Even in a collection very marked by styling that only finished 5 minutes before the start of the fashion show... It would work out and it did.
In a collection that aims to touch the uncomfortable limit for traditional codes of men's clothing. With inspiration from American football and respective jerseys...
"I was totally clueless about sewing and I felt that even though I didn't put myself out of my comfort zone. (...) Ariana, let's get our hands dirty (...) And since I had kind of turned on that button of, OK, I have to do this for me, it was (...) the year I was most calm in college."
One of the goals she had was to put herself in discomfort, in the sense of taking risks, of doing, more than doubting. So she successfully managed to work with a material like leather.
Non-practicing artist, multidisciplinary, she doesn't have a plan written in stone. She needs to live the area, intern, navigate a bit the love/hate relationship she feels exists with Fashion when in the designer role. For now she's going step by step, since for now she doesn't imagine herself doing the same thing for 20 years.
Alexandre Barros
"The collection 'Modern Sacrifice' arose from the need to explore the choices we are forced to make in our lives and the consequences they bring us. As inspiration I had the medical procedures of my adolescence, the body as a battlefield, cancer as a muse, an idea that for some may sound morbid, but for me was always a creative source. However instead of exploring the physical marks and pains of treatment, I felt the need to understand the mind before the needle, the spirit before the incision. I wanted to explore sacrifice, ritual, and acceptance."
For the future, the closer to Haute Couture, the better. Also having on the table the option of working in pattern making. Being aware that having his own brand isn't the type of responsibility he wants for himself even 3 years from now.
Throughout all his answers, Alexandre always emphasized the fact that he was responding to someone who had already lived the experience of the master's and the collection, giving a very interesting twist to the written answers.
From the process itself he highlights the inexplicable feeling, in his perspective only known by those who create, of seeing a design so idealized come to life in three dimensions. A euphoria that drives adrenaline and erases fatigue.
Anabela Melo
The girl from the island who dreamed of Fashion made it - she presented her first collection under her own name. A collection that gives life to the nostalgia of the passage from Summer to Winter.
Biggest difficulty of the process? The optical illusions that working with stripes can cause. To the point of dreaming about stripes... And, something that can also happen and here was reality was hating her own work when the collection was almost ready.
But when change is no longer an option, autopilot kicks in and the magic of Fashion ends up happening.
In a collection of vivid tones and streetwear that takes us to the beach, intense is thus "What remains of what was." A work where Portuguese production materials, sustainable and deadstock, are highlighted.
And if, mostly, difficulties arise during the making process, it's not a rule. Choosing a single idea, a concept, in the midst of a world of hypotheses wasn't a simple decision for Anabela.
Behind her is her singular process - without all-nighters, with more frustrations drawing than sewing, on the horizon there are vast possibilities.
"(...) of course, that deep down I intend to have already started my small business of (...) a thousand and one things that can be done with 1 meter of fabric, needle, thread and scissors!"
A note on gratitude
Something that runs through all testimonies - written, on Zoom or recorded in audio - is gratitude to professor Eduarda.
In each answer I reviewed, I reviewed a large part of my life in small experiences. Putting together the answers transcribed here and those to come, "Eduarda" - sometimes without the "professor" or "professor Eduarda" - are expressions of love and enormous admiration for someone who knew how to guide, shape, understand and nurture everyone's growth.
And how not to love someone who gave us wings to fly?
(To be continued...)
With love,
Vera Lúcia