Written by Christine Bornfeld

Having a look at fashion designer Maxime Rappaz, there cannot be even the smallest doubt that Switzerland has much more to offer than banks and tax advantages.

“Geometry. Femininity. Poetry.”, that’s what his collections are about, states the Swiss womenswear designer whose latest collection was showed at the international festival of fashion & photography in Hyères, France. Although he went home with empty hands, his efforts were not without avail: his oeuvre was covered in numerous media ranging from local Swiss newspaper to Vogue in France and Germany.

His final collection ‘Finally I Opted For The Square’ is escorted by a geometric, rigid, minimalistic connotation. Boxes and squares add to a rather clean and severe optic. Hardly surprising: Rappaz took his inspiration from buildings and architecture in his surroundings. Shutter shades, electric sockets, grouted tiles – a landscape of basic shapes and materials.

But there’s more to it: at the same time, he confronts us with pure femininity, romance and sublime sensibility. A colour palette of summery temperatures and every young girl’s reveries: a quiet beige, a shocking pink, a calming mint.

Swirling around the rigid quadrangles are pleasant pleats, shiny silks and subtle transparencies not exposing any more sexyness than an innocent shoulder or a vaguely perceptible breast. A smooth fight between dream and reality.

Here’s what the designer says himself:

“A questioning about the concept of purity. Because the absolute purity isn’t attainable, I searched a way to circle this reality. I preferred visual simple solutions like a photomontage to evoke my constant ideal of purity than trying to obtain it directly in the clothe construction. I wanted it ironic and at the limit of the absurdity (with 3D accessories and surfaces like in levitation). In two colors (gris beige and pastel green), in repetitive fabrics (leather, jeans and silk), in minimalistic identical shapes: my collection is also an illustration of my obsessional wish of control. Inspired by a personal series of photographies that describe a minimalist universe with surfaces and lines, my collection is foremost a experimental project that seems to be a starting point: because even if the purity is unattainable, I want to deal with.”

A talent to keep an eye upon in the future.

images courtesy of the artist