Kévin Germanier Unleashes “Les Monstrueuses” at mudac
mudac, Les Monstrueuses. Carte blanche à Kévin Germanier, © guillaumepython
Kévin Germanier has long championed a vision of couture where exuberance meets ethics, proving that glamour can thrive without excess and that discarded materials can be coaxed into objects of surprising beauty. His work sits at a rare crossroads: craft, community, and sustainability, instinctively answering a generation questioning what luxury should really look like.
Les Monstrueuses, now on view at mudac in Lausanne, offers a vivid immersion into that world. Rather than tracing his career, the exhibition explores the questions that currently drive his work: how repair can become ornament, how collaboration shapes a garment’s soul, and how overlooked fragments of the fashion cycle can regain expressive power when treated with intention.
mudac, Les Monstrueuses. Carte blanche à Kévin Germanier, © guillaumepython
Since launching his eponymous house in 2018, Germanier has developed a visual language that is unapologetically bold: vivid color, sculptural silhouettes, and a deft handling of rescued materials. What might seem like debris in another studio becomes, in his hands, couture that is witty, celebratory, and defiantly optimistic. As mudac notes, “by transforming reclaimed materials such as unused fabrics and forgotten beads, he shows that sustainability and elegance can go hand in hand”—a point the exhibition makes through pieces that balance spectacle with delicacy.
Germanier’s process is rooted in reuse, but not in the romanticised sense often associated with “craft.” His materials arrive with irregularities, mismatched origins, and their own stories. Transforming them requires many hands: knitters from his native Valais, artisans from across continents, collaborators with specialized skills. Couture, even at its most fantastical, is still a communal effort.
This human dimension deepens through partnerships with organisations supporting social reintegration via textile work. Here, fashion becomes quietly restorative, offering skills and structure where they are most needed—a counterpoint to an industry often fixated on the finished image while hiding the labor behind it.
At the centre of Les Monstrueuses, a reconstructed studio replaces the myth of the secluded atelier with a space that’s alive and unapologetically messy. Offcuts, fibres, and fragments are elevated rather than hidden. Dominating the room is a textile chimaera: a riot of recycled fabrics, surplus beads, and rescued threads, all tangled together in a kind of beautiful chaos that mirrors Germanier’s creative energy.
The exhibition showcases some of his playful collaborations: a gown for Caran d’Ache made entirely from pencils and pens, shimmering like a mosaic, and the Montreux Jazz Festival’s 60th-anniversary artwork, 60,000 beads catching the light like a shimmering constellation. Germanier delights in turning the unlikely into the extraordinary—fashion that doubles as cultural commentary.
More than a display of garments, Les Monstrueuses argues for a different couture: one that treats constraints as inspiration and finds beauty in what others overlook. In an industry still wrestling with its environmental legacy, Germanier offers a persuasive alternative—where heritage techniques meet forward-thinking ideas, each sharpening the other.
Les Monstrueuses runs at mudac, Lausanne, until 22 March 2026.
