HEAD Fashion Show 2025: Matil Vanlint emerges as a designer to watch

HEAD Geneve in Switzerland may be a relevantly young fashion school, when compared to other institutions across the UK and Europe, as it was created in 2006 from the merger of two prestigious schools, the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and the Haute École d’Arts Appliqués, but its annual graduate showcase for its Bachelor and Master's fashion degree courses show, which took place on November 14, demonstrated that it is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with in creating fashion designers of tomorrow.

The HEAD Fashion Show 2025 is the institutions landmark event and this year featured 23 Bachelor and 8 Master graduate collections, offering diverse and bold reinventions of contemporary fashion derived from their own personal narratives, as well as bringing together students from the BA Interior Architecture course who designed the scenography for the catwalk showcase, and those from the jewellery and accessories departments who added their pieces to enhance some of the looks, and 60 street casted models to bring the show to life.

Lada Umstätter, director of HEAD – Genève, said in a statement: “The HEAD Fashion Show 2025 is much more than just a fashion show. It is a celebration, a moment of pure energy where an entire school comes together, professors, partners, figures from the world of fashion, journalists and audiences to bring creativity to life. Together, we share the same passion: imagining new ways to create, learn and dream.

“Each year, the show reminds us of the strength, sensitivity and determination of our students. Their ability to give form to their ideas and carry them through sits at the core of what we support at HEAD.”

Held in the school’s ‘Cube,’ nearly 3,000 guests were captivated by the 220 looks gracing the catwalk under a beautiful oval lighting installation designed by Alexis Lang, a Bachelor student in Interior Architecture at HEAD. The scenography was designed to enhance the students’ collection by questioning the way sunlight and its variations of intensity and colour, from morning to evening, from summer to winter, transform our perception of clothing. The result was a gradual evolution of the light, echoing the nuances of the day and the seasons, unfolding throughout the show. Offering a play between the cooler light of summer and midday and the warmer tones of evening and winter to reveal the materials, colours and richness of the graduate designers’ work.

This year’s event also had an impressive international jury, including Paris-based German fashion designer Lutz Huelle, who heads up the fashion department at HEAD, Swiss designer Kevin Germanier, founder of Germanier, Marco Russo, who is the design director for runway and celebrities at Louis Vuitton, Italian designer Niccolò Pasqualetti, who was a finalist for the 2024 LVMH Prize, as well as Mauro Grimaldi, strategic advisor for Richemont, and journalist Sarah Mower, who awarded six major prizes celebrating the excellence and individuality of the students’ collections.

Matil Vanlint wins two awards at HEAD Fashion Show 2025

One of the most striking collections of the night was from MA graduate Matil Vanlint from Belgium, who built her ‘V’ collection around three words, victim, violence and victory, exploring what would happen if trauma manifested itself in physical distortions. The result was a very personal collection, where the red and shocking pink looks blurred the light between beauty and the monstruous, from one look featuring an oversized bow to another with lumpy leggings, while others were crafted from upcycled T-shirts, and a red felt jacket was crafted using millinery techniques by careful shaping the felt by hand to create distorted lumps to the hip and chest. Each look was also paired with distorted wigs, made by Tommy and Noeh in Brussels, featuring exaggerated details that people usually find unattractive, such as thinning hair, as well as distorted, weirdly shaped shoes inspired by the designers' bunions.

Vanlint explaining to FashionUnited backstage before the showcase: “Through this collection, I share a part of my journey, as a manifesto for life with the pieces crafted in the way that pushes the monstrosity and the distortion up to the head and up to the feet.”

The collection made such an impact that Vanlint won two prizes on the night: the Vahabzadeh Foundation Prize for the best MA collection, as well as the Association of Swiss Women and Empowerment (ASWE) Prize.

On awarding the honour, Sarah Mower, journalist and fashion critic at Vogue Runway, said: “To me, this is one of the most meaningful prizes I have seen in any college, and I have been to many colleges around the world. It is the Master Prize of the Association for Swiss Women and Empowerment, ASWE.

“At a time when misogyny is showing its face around the world, and when women’s careers in fashion have not been recognised or highlighted as they should be, this prize is especially important.

“I am delighted that the unanimous decision of the jury is to award this prize to a woman who has not only presented an extraordinary creative collection, but who also shared with us what she has gone through in order to pursue her own ambitions and inner convictions something so important when bringing work into the world."

Ewen Danzeisen wins the La Redoute × HEAD Prize

Another highlight from the MA cohorts was Ewen Danzeisen, who’s all-back ‘Meet the Crows’ collection was awarded the La Redoute × HEAD Prize. At the heart of his collection was the idea of “garments as lived-in experiences,” which drew inspiration from his own wardrobe, as well as an exploration of silhouettes and techniques, such as weaving copper fibres into his shimmering bomber jacket.

“I like comfortable things in which I feel contained, safe and confident, and this is reflective in my collection,” Danzeisen said about his collection backstage. “I’m also half Japanese, so I have a lot of Japanese inspirations, both in the silhouettes, the clean lines and the relaxed posture. I also worked mainly with black, a spectrum that’s not inviting, yet makes you want to look closer, which I enhanced with textures, such as wool, heavy cotton and denim to create contrasts.”

Sylvette Lepers, head of designer and image partnerships at La Redoute, who sat on the jury of the prize, added: “Ewen brings a sense of simplicity to streetwear. His command of pattern-cutting gives his work a distinctive clarity. For Winter 2026, Ewen will create two no-gender silhouettes for La Redoute, freely inspired by his graduation pieces. I am delighted to add his name to the long list of invited designers at La Redoute.”

While fellow MA graduate Thongchai Lerspiphopporn created a collection that explores the boundaries between fashion and jewellery by questioning the adequacy of conventional definitions. Drawing from his background in jewellery design, chainmail was turned into interlinked leather forms, while basketry and weaving were reimagined to build fluid yet resilient skins, and prong and pavé settings became fastening systems.

“Each piece is hand-assembled from flat materials into sculptural forms,” explains Lerspiphopporn, “These jewellery-like garments do not merely adorn the body - they define it. Existing between disciplines, they merge craftsmanship and fashion into a new material expression.”

HEAD Fashion Show 2025: BA graduates

For the BA course, 23 fashion students showcased graduate collections centred around family, childhood, nature, technology, queer identity and their own experiences and heritage, from Arsen Aeby’s ‘Artificial Bloom: Embodied Hybrid’ collection that blending the elegance of 1930s wardrobes with handcrafted electronic circuits, giving each looks a cyborg persona to Alexandra Bystrova’s ‘Shadow in the Fields’ collection that drew inspiration from traditional clothing of Russian peasants, shaped by a deeply personal exploration of depression by merging utilitarian garments, humble materials, and ancestral techniques, such as hand-felted wool.

Other collections touching on heritage included French Tunisian designer Asma Haddad, who chose to tell her own story through her graduate ‘Beyna Benkine’ collection, merging Tunisian craftsmanship and sportswear. Haddad reimagined sportswear through a non-Western lens and reconnected it with inherited techniques and forms, offering pieces that revive ancestral craftsmanship, while also balancing nostalgia and modernity. Highlights included voluminous baggy trousers, draped hoodies, and a layered shirt concept.

The collection made such an impact that Haddad was awarded the Le Bal des Créateurs & Kevin Murphy for image/artistic direction, impressing the jury with her research, theme, photoshoot for the lookbook, as well as the construction of her garments.

There were also several wearable collections, including Léon Narbel’s ‘Noms, Prénoms’ collection, which won the Bongénie Bachelor Prize, centred around an adaptable wardrobe made from durable natural or second-hand materials, focused on “everyday comfort, while aiming for longevity through pieces that can evolve”.

Narbel added: “I try to keep things simple and timeless in the design while adding twists in the patternmaking, with the intention of creating clothes that are pleasant to wear - somewhere between softness and protection, between pyjama and armour.”

Cyril Jordil, buyer for Bongénie, who sat on the jury for the prize, added: "With beautifully precise branding and clear craftsmanship, the ‘Nom.Prenom’ collection stands out as a truly contemporary project. Its strength lies in the clarity and sincerity of its intention.

“At a time when narratives can feel exaggerated, this approach feels refreshingly genuine and offers strong potential on the market."

Other highlights included Maïa Malige, who used Scotch tape as the starting point for her whose ‘Scotché’ collection, featuring sweatshirts, T-shirts and football jerseys taped to eveningwear, Iwan Hochstrasser’s ‘Nocturnal Playgrounds’ explored the transformative energy of queer nightlife, with exaggerated ballgowns styled under coats and jumpers, while Nina Rehacek showcased a hybridisation of athleticwear and the wardrobe of 1970s rock stars for her ‘Don’t Tell Me There’s No Hope At All’ collection, and Yann Thomas was inspired by the 'Archive of Motion' and his memories spent working on cars with his father.

Swiss designer Mélanie Schiewe also made a statement with her ‘Pretty In Pink’ collection, exploring how clothing can influence the way one is perceived, blending key masculine and feminine elements to create a wardrobe that reflects her own identity. The result was striped polos enhanced with oversized bow detailing at the waist, sporty looks with bubble hems, and a scarf reinvented as a top and as a bow on a hoodie. This impressed the jury, who awarded the designer the Commune de Collonge-Bellerive award.

The night also highlighted last year’s La Redoute x HEAD Prize winner, Alan Clerc, who presented a capsule collection created in collaboration with the online retailer. For its autumn–winter 2025 collection, La Redoute has renewed its Signature pieces, with a focus on key wardrobe items reinterpreted by invited designers, including Clerc, who imagined a capsule built around one emblematic silhouette: a structured suit, in black and off-white, paired with a cream shirt. Drawing on architectural references, Cler showcased a collection that plays with proportions, such as lengthening the jacket and wide trousers while creating a cinched effect that allows the garment to settle naturally on the body.

“His work is remarkable. This young man, who writes as well as he cuts, is as strong in pattern making as he is in design, which is very rare,” added Lepers.