TO STYLE IS TO RESIST
because styling begins where consumption ends
My thesis reframes styling as a sustainable, political and relational practice. Often associated with trends, image-making and status, styling traditionally refers to how clothes are arranged on a body or in a frame. I ask what else it can do. How we can truly work with what we already have.
What's underneath?
Like most things I do, this process started with something I already had. An old fashion magazine lying around at the free shop. It became the starting point of my layout. I began collecting all the texts, images, and references that make up this multilayered project, Material Matters — and started putting them together, day by day.
It is a relational process, meaning it’s shaped by encounters, by availability, by care. Every decision was influenced by the materials around me, the people I was in dialogue with, and the questions that kept returning. And so the form emerged through context. It was important to me to create a hub of shared knowledge.
Ans I’ve been working like this throughout my studies. Responding to what’s around me. Following materials, conversations and asking questions. Most of my projects didn’t begin with a fixed idea and none of them were final. They are in-between steps that shape how I think and how I work. This magazine holds traces of all of them. And it has hands on methods.
This magazine brings together personal writing, theoretical reflections, interviews, collages and styling exercises. It explores styling as a practice shaped by access, repetition, re-use and relation. Some texts reflect on specific projects. Others collect voices that have influenced me. There are conversations about refusal, performativity and self-styling, alongside practical methods developed during the last two years. The structure is non-linear.
Acknowledgements: Anna Laederach, Aydran Cook, Billie Madrigal, Cait Pöthke, Diego Cremonini, Eileen Campbell, Eva Katherina Bühler, Fair Fashion Factory, Finn Hasenmann, Flurina Kühne, Fynn Martens, Gioia Ceravolo, Houssam Zaroual, Jael Rickenbacher, Jo Arndt, Julia Maria Taras, Larissa Salome Klarer, Lamine Badian Kouyaté, Lou Tschumi, Lotte-Mo Berkhan, Luana Capaul, Luisa Later, Marija Milovanovic, Miguel Adrover, Nils Niederhauser, Noëmi Gutzwiller, Noémie Prod’hom, Ntando Cele, Priska Morger, Ronja Buser, Sagil Md. Amin, Sibylle Meyer-Pardo, Sofiia Shymanska, Sofia Achoukhi, Susanne Suss, Tale Lyam Burger, Tenant of Culture, Valie Export, Vanessa Scheidegger, Yasmina Nyffenegger.
I’m one voice among many. Others have been doing this work for years, even decades. I see myself as part of that. This is my contribution to a fight that belongs to all of us.