Awarded
Romance Berberat
'Nous travaillons sans accident depuis 135 jours', diploma collection (2010)
Fashion Design
Awarded
'Nous travaillons sans accident depuis 135 jours', diploma collection (2010)
Fashion Design
Firsthand
Developed as part of her professional training, the collection 'Nous travaillons sans accident depuis 135 jours' ('We have been working without any accidents for 135 days') by Romance Berberat is not immediately intelligible at a first glance. Although the title hints at a connection with the working world (in dangerous factories and workshops, accident-free days are counted and new records are rewarded), viewers must first discover for themselves what exactly these old and worn-looking pieces of clothing are all about.
The first thing to note: these clothes have never actually been worn. This becomes clear when visitors hold them in their hands and feel them, if not before. They are made only of the best materials. A closer look reveals the first-class execution of the seams and hems. With their interest thus aroused, visitors slowly begin to comprehend the concept behind the men's collection.
Romance Berberats takes as her starting point her interest in the significance of bad taste in contemporary fashion design. For this purpose, she went to a stronghold of simple and poorly thought-out fashion: a rural area. In her home village in the Jura, she took pictures of her father and also of other men in their work clothes. She did the same at a place of so-called good taste: in the city with its inhabitants.
This has resulted in a new collection which takes rural work wear as it starting point and permits the fashion designer to adjust the design of the clothes to contemporary fashion. She has retained the colourfulness and shape of the various prototypes of working clothes used. For example, overalls are narrowed into a slim line, the XXL fleece jacket is made into skinny jeans and the somewhat too tight factory apron is worn underneath a fitted blazer.
As part of her final-year degree project, Romance Berberat has explored the subject of bad taste. The result not only shows a great deal of creative confidence and technical know-how, but there is also playfulness and irony in juxtaposing the city perspective to rural normality. The question arises: is the self-centred gaze of the city dweller necessarily that of good taste?
Anna Niederhäuser
Romance Berberat
Born in
1982
Education
Fashion designer