Meet GFF International Talent, Hugo Castejon-Blanchard from ESMOD Paris. Hugo’s final year project is called The Interns, and is inspired by professional administrative clothing and how this clashes with youth culture. “This collection is a glitch in the buttoned up world of business, the goal being to wear a garment that seems unsuitable to denounce a reality,” says Hugo about his work. Read on below to learn more.
Tell us about you, where are you from, what lead you to fashion and choosing that course?
My name is Hugo Castejon-Blanchard, I was born in Lyon where I had the most common childhood possible, if I may say so. My parents, who were well aware of art and culture world, raised us in a very open-minded way and taught us how to enjoy different artistic fields such as painting, reading, cinema among others.
I vividly remember my father instilling into my sister and me the need to find a passion to guide our lives. Something that would take us beyond the everyday and allow us to reach our full potential. This made me grow up with the need to find a domain where I would find a way to express myself. This need is extremely important to me because it makes up for a weakness of mine when it comes to writing, due to dyslexia/dysorthographia.
Gradually, when I discovered fashion, I found a substitute. I thought fashion was superficial and uninteresting, but was eventually seduced by the history of fashion and fashion icons. After all, history is still my first passion, as can be seen from the various references in my work. After obtaining my secondary school degree with a focus in economic and social sciences, I pursued an administrative path, a choice I made because I was attracted to the world of entrepreneurship and accounting. Simultaneously, I continued to develop my interest in fashion by learning to design patterns, clothes and looks completely independently that went on to be used in an amateur photoshoot. I finally focused my inspirations, knowledge and desires during my three years at ESMOD. Little by little, I oriented my interests towards current fashion and not only its history. It was therefore a long process that led to a recent interest in clothing and fashion in general.
Describe the inspiration and concept behind your work. Talk us through your final project and your research process. How did that come about?
I was deeply marked by the two years I spent training in business management and administration. It shifted my way of seeing things and provided indisputable professional cultural foundation, an experience that I wanted to draw upon for my collection.
“The Interns” is a story of a meeting between the youth and administrative worlds. This youth that expresses itself through the spirit of freedom. On the other hand, there is administrative world, a cold, square one which yearns to be organized. This fortress of paperwork serves as a backdrop to this collection.
Amélie Nothbomb’s novel Fear and Trembling was the trigger. It is the story of a failure of professional reintegration in a world where codes and standards are unique and specific. The story of my interns evolved in another direction later on with the influence of the Zazou movement, with which I identify, and chose to pursue different modes of expression, and it then became a form of protest.
All the clothes in my collection seem unsuitable for the person wearing them, like a simple person in the administrative labyrinth. I have chosen to divert the classic “administrative uniform” suit, by adding various elements of bad taste. These proportions merge the expertise of tailoring and the technique of blurring lines by re-appropriating this universe and administrative codes.
This collection is a glitch in the buttoned up world of business, the goal being to wear a garment that seems unsuitable to denounce a reality. But, it also offers a more optimistic vision regarding gender and more sustainable in terms of production.
Tell us about your design process. How do you work? How do you take your research and develop your own designs?
Proportions and volume is an essential aspect for me. It’s not just one of the elements of the garment, its the fabric of the story, the subject on which I really wanted to focus. The rest will come to enhance, enrich these proportions.
I therefore work in 3D as much as possible in the early stages, I like to transform existing garments, cut them up, drape them, work on them to stimulate ideas and offer a wide range of various results. For this collection, I did an exercise that I called “big volume,” which consisted in designing large muslin samples , 10 times bigger than the classic garment, and then draping or folding them over a person or mannequin. I wished to obtain natural and suggestive draping, for that I had to put myself in a concrete situation.
It is thanks to the photos taken during these exercises that I decided upon the essential part of the volumes in my collection. I then enriched it, modified it with references to traditional Asian costumes, especially for the sleeves and other details, from a large database that I accumulated throughout the year. This second step took much longer than the 3D research. It required a long period of reflection after collecting as many images as possible and displaying them on a large board to get the widest vision possible.
The sketches come at the very end, in order to create a number and style of very specific garments.
At the tame time, I think about the universe in which my story evolves, via a search of artistic visuals, works or events. With a less concrete and more abstract state of mind where I don’t really think about the clothes anymore, I will be able to think about patterns, materials and most often, accessories. For this collection, it was a question of diverting everyday objects, like the Zazous did.
Tell us about your Collection Development. How do you toile, how do you like to pattern cut, do you like to drape?
Volume is a very important step for me. It is often an uphill battle excessive in critical thinking. My pattern work often came after I took a sample, studied it and then created a sketch.
Due to my fondness for blurring lines, casting is often a must for my pattern making. But, in contrast, the exaggerated proportions that I develop and reproduce makes this work simpler when flat cutting. Over time, I have developed already “oversized” bases which serve as a reference for each garment and which help me to build up the volumes of my garments. Afterwards, I would work on the details to blur the lines via adjusted patterns.
I have little interest in complex cuts, pockets or assemblies that could deform or overload my volume work. I am very curious to discover new methods of pattern making and spend my time reading books and studying patterns to gain a practical understanding of the natural movements of fabric. I also remain pragmatic in the way I design a garment by taking inspiration from other garments. I often cut out garments to better understand them.
Talk us through your final collection and each outfit. Why where these the final designs?
The collection evolved very quickly in quantity after i received a nomination at the Dinan young designer festival. The 4 looks and 12 original garments became 8 looks and 24 garments as well as about 10 accessories. It is a godsend to be able to express oneself without overloading these silhouettes already weighed down by large volumes.
My wardrobe is mainly inspired by tailoring, so there are a large number of shirts, trousers as well as tailored jackets. The models chosen often have a common base to remind to signal the uniformity of the “costume” worn in the administrative world. They are differentiated by their drapery or knotting, like a shirt tied around the beck as a collar, or the various trousers that are single or double folded, at the back or the front. Some pieces are very strong their references to the theme, such as the knitted poncho with distressed look, the tyvek parka filled with real paper for padding; or the knitted sweatshirt printed with zeros that form a square and buttons on the sleeve giving a “suit effect” but which are actually recycled keyboard keys.
Other pieces make a statement via their volumes and the suggestion that it makes to my theme. I am thinking in particular of the trench coat with a very voluminous cascading pleat, or even this skirt of men which really suggests the behavior of “interns” consists of adapting to these garments that are too big for them. The hardest thing for this collection was to choose which “basics” to design. They aren’t so basic in terms of volume, but they allow me to give the general attitude of the collection and to enhance the strong pieces as a counterpoint.
What materials have you used within the collection and how did you source them? Why were this the right material for your collection?
The suit as an “administrative uniform” was my starting point. Wool being the traditional fabric of tailoring was therefore de rigueur. However, I wanted to obtain fluid volumes and mix my tailoring technique with different knotting and draping tactics. I therefore selected very fine and supple woolen fabrics to achieve the desired result. Using various interlining techniques, I stiffened and transformed the fabrics to obtain the proportions of jackets and square sleeves or another type of draping with a rounder effect. Moreover, I chose to laminate the woolen fabric with a 3D mesh. Still in the tailoring perspective, I found cotton poplins for shirts that are treated to make them breathable and water repellent. Woolen fabrics have also been treated to make them water-repellent.
I chose to use more technical materials such as 3D mesh for the sweater and jacket or i often used Tyvek. This material, whose appearance strongly resembles that of paper, has allowed me to add many references to all of the paperwork so important to the administrative world. It is processed in many forms, cut into strips, then knitted as much as it can be with a distressed look. It is also printed with a pattern inspired by the administrative code like a sheet of text that I used for the parka and umbrella hats.
Finally, I used denim because nowadays we don’t wear suits as such in the professional world as in the past. They’ve been replaced with jeans. I wanted to treat the denim as a woolen fabric by removing all of the stitching and other details specific to jeans and thereby creating a parody when inserting them into the dull world of business. I also favored materials produced in Europe in compliance with the Ecotec label as well as organically sourced materials.
Tell us about your illustration technics. Explain your final line up and what art materials and technics you use to showcase it.
Sketching is really not a priority for me. Drawing pretty silhouettes is of little interest, apart from communicating my ideas. I find that a pretty drawing doesn’t necessarily make a beautiful garment, and sometimes limits creativity. I mainly draw on a tablet with the Procreate app. I often use photographs of my research work that I transfer over, accentuate and repeat.
I like to mark my designs with any pleats or fabric effects. There are often a little too many to be realistic but adds dimension to the areas of flat color I create.
I would like to work more on my illustration style to be more personal and less realistic. I aspire to get closer to the traditional Japanese prints and broaden my mastery of texture.
What part of your final project have you enjoyed most and why? ie, the research and concept or maybe the manufacturing of the collection.
In the last few months, I’ve really learned more about myself as a designer. I’ve enjoyed constructing the theme and concept of my collection. I gathered together the elements that have gradually formed a personal story rich in detail. It's more than designing the garment, for me, it's the search for a theme that fascinated me and it is also for this reason that I wish to work on another personal collection in the months following my graduation. I found it profound to look deep down into my personality and experiences to find how to give meaning to this collection. From the choice of material or volume, to finishing the garment, I tried to find a tangible, justifiable meaning to my work.
I also took a lot of pleasure when researching volumes or different draping exercises that I undertook in the first weeks of the project.
I realize that if I had to entrust the design of my prototypes to another person, I would be able to, even though it is something close to my heart, since it would allow e to develop and work even more on the design of my clothes and do more advanced research.
What’s an aspect of the fashion industry that you’re passionate about fixing or having a positive impact on?
I aspire to work mainly on the design and conception of clothing side, preferably in men’s fashion. There is still much work to be done in this market, such as breaking codes and values that are still too common. I am thinking in particular of femininity and the impact it can have on men’s fashion. What will be the future boundaries between men’s and women’s fashion with these men who increasingly assume this part of themselves and wish to conceive other stereotypes. Moreover, our world is not yet out of a major crisis and all the changes made before that in our industry, which must become the norm. I am very happy to see this evolution so early in my career because it opens so many opportunities for a new way of seeing the role of clothing in our lives and therefore the reflection of the designer of that garment.
What is your plan once you finish your BA? Where do you wish to be in the future?
I have discovered a real passion for the profession of design these last few months and with to continue in this direction. I a currently looking for an internship to enrich my professional trajectory and grow as a creative person. I aspire to finish my training with such experiences over the next year.
I am also thinking about another collection project that I would like to develop in parallel with my internships. I still feel that I have a lot of personal research to do, a new creative horizon to discover, and another collection would allow me to satisfy these desires. This collection will soon be presented at the Dinan festival in December where I hope to meet people who will help me to launch potential projects of brand creation or a long term position in a studio.