Carolina Reis

What is your name? Carolina Reis

What is the name of your label? The project that I am presenting for FASHIONCLASH is called WEAROUT. I don’t have a name for my label. I practice under my own name. I work on different collections and projects and each one lives like a brand on its own.

Where did you study and when did you graduate? I did my bachelor at Université du Québec à Montréal in Canada and I graduated in 2008. Then I studied Master in Design in the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. I graduated in 2010.

What inspires you as a designer? Primarily, the context in which the clothes will be worn. We use garments to protect ourselves, not just for social appearances. Is the environment going to be cold, warm? How will the wearer move? At last, what does it need to communicate?

I have a multidisciplinary approach to fashion design. I seek inspiration in materials and fibres, innovation, current affairs, social behavior, psychology of identity, science, geometry and ergonomics. Basically, everything that moves the world is important and is a part of the process.

Who is your favorite (fashion) designer? Why? I am asked this question very often and it is hard for me to select one designer. Clothes reflect the values of a given society. I admire a designers who go beyond the simple fact of doing fashion, but also communicate a new vision of the world and promote quality. There are too many, but to name just a few: Bless and Martin Margiela for deconstructing, recycling and transgressing conventions; Rei Kawakubo for questioning the idea of the body and female representations; Issey Miyake for pushing technological innovation; Katherine Hammet for her legacy in fighting for ethical issues; Ying Gao for giving grace and sense to interactive garments and Hussein Chalayan for making me proud of being a fashion designer..

What can you bring to FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I hope to show a new way of seeing fashion to the visitors of the event.

What do you expect from the FASHIONCLASH Maastricht 2011? I hope to communicate the message that fashion is about people and for people who wear it and not about the designer.

How did your experience with fashion started? When did you decide to be a (fashion) designer? I have always had interest in visual arts. Fashion brings a great challenge because it links the creativity of an art and the pragmatism of design. It bares the history of seduction and fantasy, but also needs to satisfy basic needs of physical protection. Fashion relates to everyone as it adorns every body. It offers great possibility for artistic expression through all kinds of mediums that go beyond just clothes, because it is intrinsically linked with the being.

What are your goals concerning your career? What are your ambitions? Where do you see yourself in the future? My ambitions are to continue to develop and improve my work. I would like to find new ways to overcome the challenges our societies are facing. I hope to improve people’s living, even if that means making less fashion. Designers have an increasing social responsibility.



Edited by Natalia Serwanska