POSITIONING
The Berlin presentation is an example of my approach to design and direction as interconnected practices. I focused as a show director on the show format, the performances, and spatial context. The project positioned both my work and the collective within a space where fashion functions as a counter voice, creating a new narrative and structure.

SHOW DIRECTION
As show director, I made the decision to present one look per designer. Each look had to carry a complete idea on its own. The outdoor industrial location was chosen to remove the show from a controlled, polished environment. 

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The performances were positioned to create back to back contrast. Each designer occupied the space briefly, then exited. This stop and start forced the audience to reset between presentations.

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Models were instructed to inhabit a state instead of carrying out a fashion show. The result was a show that was asking the audience to engage actively.

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BRANDING & IMAGE
The show was positioned as an intervention within the normal standards of  a fashion week, operating outside official venues and traditional runway formats. By staging the show outdoors and outside official venues, the project existed alongside fashion week without conforming to its protocols. This positioning allowed The Patchwork Family to engage with the system while remaining independent from its expectations.

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Queerness is embedded in the collective as its core. The norms of a standard fashion show were naturally challenged by this approach. Established cultural forms, such as opera, posing, or leisure, were appropriated and performed without exaggeration. By inhabiting these standards, the show introduced provocation without aggression. The project positioned fashion as a space where norms are reused, inhabited, and shifted, allowing new readings to appear without forcing them.

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PERFORMANCE AND CONCEPTUAL TRANSLATION
My contribution as a designer took the form of a live performance. The model sang “O mio babbino caro” by Puccini while holding a phone displaying the lyrics. The singing was intentionally off key. The performance referenced the case of Magali Jaskiewicz, a French woman who legally married her deceased fiancé through a posthumous marriage in France in 2009. The use of a phone as lyric prompt was meant as a disruptive tool, grounding the performance in contemporary reality. The garment was simply a bed sheet constructed as a dress that was held together by safety pins. This design was meant to visually translate the dream state of grieve and love.