5 February 2025 |
Koosh ball dresses, twisted skirt sets, and more from his debut couture show.
One could call Germanier the glittering upcycling ASMR machine of the fashion week world tour. Since founding the brand in 2018, Swiss born designer Kevin Germanier has been putting out spectacular, fantastical colorful fashion that is as visual as it is textural. And not only does it take up space, it makes noise. Think: kinetic-like spikes of cellophane sparkles, or meticulously beaded dresses in rainbow colors that click, clack, and chime as they move down the runway. He’s naturally garnered his own specific devoted following of maximalists since he began showing at Paris Fashion Week a few years ago. Color is Germanier’s native language.
And so, it makes total sense that for the spring 2025 season, Germanier debuted the brand’s first haute couture collection in Paris and took his work to bigger, brighter, and bolder new heights. Securing the closing spot on the official calendar, the runway show ended the season on a richly decorated, colorful note. For those unfamiliar, you may have seen a piece without even knowing it. The Central Saint Martins grad has dressed everyone from Lady Gaga to Björk. But if you haven’t ever heard of his work, this is how he would describe it: “It’s bold, dynamic, and colorful. The woman, alien, man, non-binary, human that I dress is aware of the past because I love what was made in the past. I have a fascination for vintage,” he says. “The Germanier human is aware of the present and that is a fucked up time, politically, socially, ecologically. But I’m already dressing them for the future. So it’s always the past, present, future.”
So, what exactly does Germanier couture look like? Beads on beads on beads–with one dress weighing nearly 45 pounds made from upcycled materials. “Honestly, it took two months, they’re still beading it,” he says. “It’s my most favorite ever because it’s also unapologetic. This is a hundred percent Germanier. You cannot beat it.” In addition to his work in Paris, the designer collaborated with a global array of makers from India to the Philippines to Kazakhstan to Brazil. ”When it comes to the culture of artisans, we have beautiful craftsmanship from all around the world. So let’s show it,” he adds.
Being as Germanier is the unofficial king of color, especially when it comes to the more muted aesthetic of the demure Parisians at fashion week, the designer almost always has an unconventional inspiration behind his work. For this collection, titled Les Globuleuses, he looked to Klari Reis’ petri dish art paintings. His show notes also allude to a Stepford Wife persona who is a prisoner of her own perfection and becomes liberated by a Germanier pearl. “The clothes she wears no longer follow rigid codes of ‘good taste’. They are made of living material: fabrics embroidered with pearls that stretch, undulate and change shape with every movement, reflecting her emotions,” the show notes say. The designer has also been collecting maximalist vintage archive fashion to inspire him, from Mugler, Dior, and more. “What is costume? What is fashion?” he says of one of his main mottos.
A trio of spiked looks that resembled real life walking Koosh balls were among the standouts from the collection, alongside tailored patterned suit jackets and matching boots covered in the designer’s signature mosaic of rainbow glass beads. “We are making our own feathers with unconventional fabric,” he says. “My biggest inspiration is the 1950s. It’s personal — I love that era. But putting a woman in a corset in 2025 is not very modern. We have to twist that.” Enter: colorful, twisted knitted skirt sets that mix new and old with the wonderfully freaky good aesthetic that Germanier has cultivated these past few years.
Germanier has already been doing custom, one-of-a-kind creations alongside its upcycling business of transforming pre-existing pieces in customers’ wardrobes, so couture comes as a natural next step. “Everyone’s going to expect a lot from us,” he says. “But I really want to show details this season that are a little bit more elevated. Every sequin is hand stitched, for example.”
In a world where quiet luxury was at the top of the trends and minimalism is more often in favor than not, you can always count on Germanier to deliver something totally different and out of the box. Just one look at any of the beaded dresses or firework-like sequin creations and you can instantly identify his keen, magpie hand in its crafting. In 2025, that might just be the most precious and rare thing at a time when designers rely so heavily on referential work or fitting into one narrow, safe aesthetic. So, here’s to this next generation’s most colorful couture designer.
