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Romance Berberat

Awarded

Romance Berberat

'Nous travaillons sans accident depuis 135 jours', diploma collection (2010)

Fashion Design

Jury report

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  

Biography

Romance Berberat
Born in
1982
Education
Fashion designer

Web

www.romanceberberat.blogspot.com

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