sustainable collection Jolie Laide

summer 2018

Jolie laide

Jolie Laide is used in French to describe someone who is beautiful with ugliness. I have translated this into a capsule collection. The pieces are a mix of Wabi Sabi and trends from the 80’s and 90’s. Often when something is in trendy, everyone is wearing it. But when we look back, we often wonder: how could I ever have like this? I have always found this an interesting phenomenon.

Photography by Dimphy Verdiesen

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The feeling of melancholy

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese term and is actually the opposite of a trend. Wabi Sabi represents the beauty of imperfection. Think of asymmetrical patterns, minimalism and working with different structures and shapes. Wabi Sabi is reflected in the collection in the form of asymmetrical garments, recycled materials and dyed (imperfect) prints.

Sabi means something like beauty created by age. You could also say: wabi is that which is tangible, sabi is time. Together they stand for a feeling of transience, looking back in time.

The trends of the 80s and 90s have one thing in common with Wabi Sabi: they are under the influence of time and they create a feeling of melancholy. The melancholy makes it beautiful in a way. In the collection I played with the idea of ​​beauty and ugliness. Old trends are reflected in the garments, colors and prints. Inspired by Wabi Sabi, the collection consists almost entirely of recycled materials. You can discover some wear and tear in the materials and old garments have been given a function again by turning them into something new.