MODE SUISSE & Friends come back with a new powerful vision for its next decade, introducing more exciting SWISS fashion talents and a new Positive Impact Award

September is a much awaited month for fashion aficionados and fashion brands all over the world. This is the month that sets the mood for the next two seasons and when new trends begin to emerge (and that seems the case ever since the 17th Century). Of course Fashion Weeks during this month play an important role, amplifying the hype around what’s new in vogue and earning the consumers attention. Switzerland started having its own fashion week about 10 years ago, in 2011 to be precise. This year the Swiss Fashion platform is making some significant changes in its format. After a short pause almost at the end of the pandemic, this February, Mode Suisse is back with a new vision, new sponsors and new and old names on the catwalk at Zurich Kunsthaus. Supported by Miele, their main sponsors, and the new Edition partner Bernina, Mode Suisse seems ready for their next decade. 

For the past 10 years Mode Suisse has been fostering and promoting Swiss Design Talent through 20 events with catwalks and showrooms mostly in Zurich, but in Paris and New York as well. This year the Swiss Fashion Platform has new ideas and a different way of promoting Swiss Fashion talent. 

First of all the 21th edition of Mode Suisse is presenting an extended format called Mode Suisse & Friends, with the idea to assemble together Swiss fashion designers, fashion schools and local retail “in order to celebrate diversity and innovate fashion power”. 

What this means is that attending the the main event, which consist of two catwalk shows on the 12th of September, you will be able to see Swiss fashion designers and fashion schools presenting their collections together with several Swiss boutiques which will be curating their own looks, selected from their own collections. This diversity of Swiss Fashion Designers andRetail will hopefully sparkle new ideas for customers how to mix and wear different labels together while curating a unique wardrobe. 

Among the Friends showing at Mode Suisse this year are Atelier 1985 (Olten), BONGENIE GRIEDER (Zurich), DOING FASHION Basel, HGK FHNW, HEAD – Genève with Adeline Rappaz and Sophie Fellay, paradis des innocents x MARAI (Zurich/Oberdiessbach), QWSTION (Zurich) and VESTIBULE stores (Zurich). Another part of the Mode Suisse & Friends is BERNINA x Irène Münger and Tribute to Stefan Steiner (styled by Leonardo VNIĆ and Vladislav Rüegger). 

This idea reflects a new vision and desire to not only celebrate and promote, but also to showcase Swiss Designers in a global context,  styled with other brands,  promoted as wearable and functional pieces for every day living. 

This year Mode Suisse is partnering as well with VN Residency, where a B2B Showroom will be hosted, starting a week later after the Fashion Catwalk on the 12th of September. Retail and designers can meet in this creative space and get to know the collections better. Among the designers in the showroom are Amorphose, Hana Kim, LARMA, MOURJJAN, NINA YUUN, paradis des innocents x MARAI, Sabine Portenier and Sarah Bounab.

This year Mode Suisse and Miele are also honouring one designer for POSITIVE IMPACT. Nina Yuun, who’s been pursuing a design approach that rethinks fashion for several collections already,  is the first designer to be esteemed with this award. She has convinced Mode Suisse and Miele with her use of deadstock and natural materials, with her brand transparency in the supplier chain and the ongoing support Nina Yuun provides for Swiss local designers and the newly initiated Monday Showroom. 

Last, but not least, this year Mode Suisse & Friends are going to be part of the three-week Zurich Design Weeks, together with Digital Festival and HackZurich, new rooms 22 and the Zurich Museum of Design. 

This year TICKETS for Mode Suisse can be purchased here.

Mode Suisse has joined the promising European Fashion Alliance (EFA), as a member from this year, in order to promote contemporary fashion design from Europe at an international level with currently 24 other fashion institutions.

For all of you interested in fashion and looking for alternatives to fast fashion, have a look at the featured Swiss Designers SS 23 collections, chosen by the vote of 11 experts, by visiting Mode Suisse Instagram, or the Mode Suisse Monday Showroom, 19th of September at VN Residency, and during the Zurich Design Week. 

All I want is everything, Jacqueline Loekito

In the meantime I reached to some of the featured designers asking them what is the message of their new collection:

Jacqueline Loekito is not new to Mode Suisse. She’s been presenting four times in the past years. She had her own label established in 2018 with the idea to promote freedom of thinking, speech and dressing. In her collections you can see right from the start no limitation in regards to gender, body shape and age. Her soft revolution agains social norms happens through promoting and popularising the pink colour, which has been a red thread in each of her collections.

Last year Jacqueline became a mother and her new collection SS23 has the provocative and bold title “All we ever wanted was everything”. The title recognises the current struggle of almost every human being: to have it all, to find balance between having a great career, a healthy almost perfect relationship, a family, travel to dream-like destinations and achieve all the material things out there…The list is endless and so is our desire, pushing ourselves to the verge of exhaustion.

For the collection Jacqueline was inspired by CUT OUTS with Jessica Backhaus’ photography, using bold colours and dominant shapes. This collection explores a different maturity from any previous work, starting with the sourcing of the materials, mixing knitwear with elements of wood to the longevity of the pieces. The fabrics include recycled knitwear and some yarns are left-over materials and dead stock from companies around Switzerland and Europe.

This yearly collection includes garments for all seasons, since last year Jacqueline Loekito and her team decided to do only one collection per year to reduce waste and support the environment.

“Utopia”, MOURJJAN

In late 2021 until summer 2022 Zurich-based Mourjjan Designer Roland G. Rahal embarked on a levant journey back to his roots to Beirut.

For almost 10 months he worked with veteran Lebanese fashion craftsmen and craftswomen to support their artisanal savoir-faire and craftsmanships in a country devastated by political and economical turmoils.

Roland created with them a “Haute-Couture” collection themed “Utopia” blending Lebanese heritage with a modern western twist.

The collection carries a sense of dreams, hopes, glamour, and reverie in a world of chaos and uncertainty.

Mourjjan’s “Utopia” collection “Envisions a moment when the impossible briefly seems real” and “Captures Free-spirited voices of new generations”.

MOURJJAN by Roland G. Rahal has been part of the Swiss Fashion Platform Selection Officielle since September 2016. Dressing celebrities on the red carpet all over the world, MOURJJAN strives to capture in its creations the delicate balance between strong and gentle, fierce and compassionate. From exclusive custom-fitted pieces to high-luxury ready-to-wear garment, the brands effortless styles and exquisite fabrics, bring you into the world of unexpected and mysterious, where old and new intervene and where the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Simulated Earth, NINA YUUN

“The concept of reality and the image of nature get enhanced yet fade away through the digital screens. Reality gets deconstructed and reassembled. We seek a home for a soul within”. NINA YUUN offers timeless, laid-back elegance that is cosmopolitan, equivalent to a modular home for the soul. Inspired by people around her, designer Nina Yuun deconstructs the Swiss precision and mixes it through artisanal techniques with imperfect elements from Korea.

Fashion designer Nina Yuun was born in New Jersey and grew up in Seoul. An art school graduate, Yuun maintains an enduring passion for colours, shapes, and materials, and she transposes her personality and international perspective into unique designs. Her brand strives to maintain zero-waste policy in every collection.

 Since her debut show in 2018, Nina Yuun has been receiving love from the Swiss fashion market and enthusiasts, already tapping into each region’s best retail points.

Images, courtesy to Mode Suisse.

Atelier 1985

The inspiration of Atelier 1985 upcoming collection comes from Peter Lindbergh photographs of supermodels wearing power suits in the 90s.

Atelier 1985 stands for timeless, luxurious and nonseasonal fashion for urban women of all ages. There is no classic collection rhyth. Instead, as most of the styles stay more than one season in the collection, the consumer is given the opportunity build up their wardrobe, by adding and combining pieces in different ways. Thus unnecessary overproduction can be avoided and a new form of sustainability can be encouraged.

 ​Sarah Bounab

We all deserve to shine while celebrating our birthday on a white horse. This Bianca Jagger spirit continues to live in my clothes, reinventing the traditional evening wear into a futuristic utopia, ethical and glamorous, mixing tradition and innovation. If metal is still omnipresent, up cycled leather is in the spotlight of this collection.

“My designs are hybrid dresses made from deconstructed patterns and silhouettes. Central to the design process is the creation of the garment, a mixture of computer processes and subsequent manual work allows me to give garments new absurd expression”, says Sarah Bounab in her latest year interview for Annabelle.

Sarah Bounab is originally from the canton of Vaud. After graduating as a Bachelor and a Master at HEAD Geneva, in 2021 Sarah launched a perfume, cox-created with the company Firmenich. After that she dedicated herself to her vision of evening wear and her eponymous brand.

The seventh collection of Nomadissem has been inspired by Slim Aarons’ “Women”, a beautiful curated representation of elegant women across half a century. The Spring Summer 2023 collection of the brand contains pieces that can be equally worn to the office, to a social event, a weekend trip in the city or the mountains, accommodating the needs of Nomadissem’s globe-trotting clientele.

A collection that allows modern female nomads to style and pack effortlessly while rest assured to leave not only an impression but also the lowest possible footprint.

Noële Nana Schaffner, the founder and Creative Director of Nomadissem was born and raised in Switzerland, surrounded by nature, with respect for quality, authenticity and in adventurous spirit inherited from her parents. Noële completed her Bachelor Studies at the renowned Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne before going on to take leadership roles in both management and marketing for multi-nationals in London, Switzerland and the Middle East. Before founding Nomadissem, which embodies a concept built on her appreciation of natural materials, sustainability, elegance, versatility and quality, Noële completed her post-graduate fashion studies at Parsons in New York.

In his new collection Giancarlo Bello continues to experiment with materials and shapes: from molded leather and ethereal clouds, to his now recurrent silk organza sculptures. Born and exclusively made in Switzerland, Amorphose represents transformation, love and uniqueness, captured in theatrical, fairy-tale and otherworldly exaggerated forms of carefully crafted clothing and accessories.

„Più blu quasi oro – or 15 ways to hide yourself from CCTV“

Amorphose SS23 collection is about surrealism and oneiric tales, a self-centered adventure, paying homage to Magritte in a juxtaposition between illogical and absolute reality.

HEAD Geneva is presenting this September two designers collections. One of them is Adeline Rappa and her “The Time of Dreams“. Her couture collection is made from fabric scraps, upcycling and vegetable dyeing. The designs are inspired by the meeting of two opposing worlds: The punk of the 80s and the Haute Couture of the 50s.

The other HEAD Geneva designer is Sophie Fellay and her Studio Remo, which aims to reconnect fashion with nature. 
Slow down. Work collectively.  Use what is around. Take care.

Sophie Fellay’s playsuit collection is built around comfort, lightness and joyfulness. Inspired by a photo of painter Agnes Martin in her studio this collection focuses on handcrafted textiles: lightweight quilted cotton and hand felted Swiss wool.

Morris Mansers’ prêt-à-porter designs are for the individuals seeking for their daily show moments. The designs include textile development based on traditional techniques, reviewed and applied on engaging silhouettes where traditional costumes are referenced in patterns and shapes:

„The Wild East“

The protagonist of the collection is a “cowboy de notre temps” prior showdown. The silhouettes express the instance right before the colts are drawn. It’s a moment full of tension, pronouncing the importance of time and how decelerated life rhythm of rural regions could be a healthier model to improving today‘s city life.

Finally the other names to be mentioned, which will be present and featured during Mode Suisse are LARMA, an independent fashion accessories brand founded in 2021 in Geneva by the designers Ania Marincek and Julia La Mendola. Imagining eyewear as jewellery, the designers create sunglasses with pearled and colorful acetates made out of the eyewear industry waste.

The first collection GENESIS, is composed of five models, available in three colors each. Combining texture, bright colors and bold designs, every detail is thought to offer high-end genderless shades manufactured responsibly.

One more interesting name with responsible approach to making modern accessories is QWSTION, a brand that has been making bags and everyday goods from plants instead of plastic since 2008, uniting responsibility with functionality and timeless aesthetics. 

Finally a Tribute to menswear designer Stephan Steiner, who’s been working with men’s clothing for over 20 years, and whose style stands for reduction to the essentials. Straight cuts and fabrics with structures and fine patterns are further characteristics of the label. Stylish, urban, self-confident. That’s how the men who dress in the Stefan Steiner store in Zurich’s Kreis 4 look.

In honour of the recently-deceased designer, Leonardo VNIĆ and Vladislav Rüegger have styled looks from the label’s archive which will e presented during Mode Suisse on the 12th of September. .

Tickets for Mode Suisse are now available for the public here.

Some images, Courtesy to Mode Suisse.