With her MA collection, the HEAD-Geneva graduate has written a compelling manifesto arguing for the joy of dressing
I was born in Saint-Légier, Switzerland, in 1993. I spent the first years of my life and school between Switzerland, London and Tanzania. When my family settled more permanently in Switzerland, I finished school and had a one-year stint studying architecture at the EPFL. In 2013 I was nominated at th
e Swiss Design Awards in 2013, this encouraged me to study fashion design at the HEAD in Geneva. Since then, my conceptual and practical work has been based on my African and European roots. My bachelor collections , "Article 15" was inspired by everyday use of clothing inspired by my aunts and uncles, street children, sapeurs and sorcerers. During my Masters I explored what sustainable fashion could be other than alternative production and sourcing systems. My mémoire "Sustainability Revisited: An attempted description of fashion futuring inspired by collective dress" explores some solutions. My masters collection, "When She Left the Room the Spirits went with her" is anchored in self-care and inspirations that bring me joy. The tradition of festive dress in the Democratic Republic of the Congo called "Uniform", Blaxploitation films from the 70's and Westerns from the same era.
The course focuses on design projects for the human body connected with the individual’s identity and social status issues, activities and needs, and more generally issues of lifestyle and Zeitgeist. It sets out to strengthen designers’ creative skills in appropriating their own language, stylistic v
ocabulary and world. They must be able to translate these elements into collections and products that respond to contemporary or future social issues and put them to use in various contexts.
At the crossroads between design and art, science and new technologies, the bachelor’s course in Fashion Design at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD Geneva) offers students an educational network of practical transversal training.
Among its main focuses are the influence of contemporary
culture and sociological change on fashion aesthetics, as well as international partnerships with leading fashion universities and famous designers. At the same time, since fashion design is a rich and complex global industrial sector, the course aims to give students the reflective tools they need in order to understand its codes.
Fashion
Sewing
Draping
Pattern making
Iconographic research
Sketching
Styling
3D research from scratch
3D research from vintage
Machine Knitting
toiling
Fitting
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
French
Bilingual
English
Bilingual
Japanese
Basic knowledge
German
Basic knowledge
Swahili
Basic knowledge
Potentially open to relocate
With her MA collection, the HEAD-Geneva graduate has written a compelling manifesto arguing for the joy of dressing
Sustainability is a tricky field to navigate for fashion students: research is both plentiful and surprisingly homogenous when it morphs into industry talk. How do you move away from the well-trodden paths? How do you make an original contribution to such a crowded yet essential conversation? Sustain
ability Revisited: An attempted description of fashion futuring inspired by collective dress is just that – an attempt to think about sustainability less straightforwardly. It asks what sustainability looks like if what is on the table is our relationship to clothes, as opposed (or in addition) to their production. MA student Tara Mabiala’s thesis looks to self-care for answers. What started as a loose intuition that self-care had something to do with sustainability evolved into a full-blown text that wraps self-care around “collective dress.”
This young designer takes inspiration from her family’s Congolese style for her graduate collection