Labbeye

L'Abbeye Issue I : the first chapter of the archive is now open for pre-order

A 400+ page coffee-table object documenting avant-garde fashion as philosophy, not trend. Standard edition 55€, Collector x Isaac Sellam 395€, 200 numbered copies.

Neo Gothic and Neo Futurism

One aesthetic mourns the past. The other imagines the future. Between neo-gothic and neo-futurism, contemporary fashion continues to seek meaning anywhere but in the present.

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MATERIAL INSTINCT: ZWYRTECH IN CONVERSATION WITH L’ABBEYE

Based in Warsaw, Zwyrtech blurs the line between jewellery and sculpture, embracing imperfection through a hands-on and exploratory process.

Accessories| Emerging Designers

SILENCE IN A LOUD INDUSTRY: THE RISE OF ANONYMOUS FASHION

Anonymous fashion is quietly reshaping the industry. Inspired by the legacy of Martin Margiela and embodied by designers like Carol Christian Poell and Aleksandr Manamïs, this movement rejects celebrity culture and returns focus to craftsmanship, material, and form.

Dark Fashion| Emerging Designers| Fashion Theory

QUEERING THE UNIFORM : SUBVERSION, KINK AND THE MILITARISATION OF STYLE

Uniforms were meant to discipline bodies and erase individuality. Yet in the hands of avant-garde designers, they become something else entirely: instruments of desire, rebellion, and identity play. From the fragile adolescent tension of Raf Simons to the hyper-queer provocations of Walter van Beirendonck and the sleek militarised sensuality of Helmut Lang, the uniform is no longer a symbol of obedience but a stage where power, vulnerability, and eroticism collide.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

WHEN MODERNITY MEETS THE MERKIN

Why the Fashion World is Exploring Hair… Down There

Accessories| Fashion Theory| Grotesque Beauty

CELEBRITIES DRESSING ON THE EDGE

Cemented at the forefront of the avant-garde, here are some looks from icons like Björk, Lady Gaga, and FKA Twigs that we cannot stop thinking about.

Dark Fashion| Eco Fashion| Emerging Designers| Fashion Theory

PETRA FAGERSTRÖM RE-INTERPRETS HOW CONDITIONED DYNAMICS IMPRINT ON WOMANHOOD

The Swedish designer presented her first London Fashion Week collection as an independent brand at Studio Smithfield.

Emerging Designers| Fashion Theory

THE OBSESSION WITH DECAY

From distressed denim to decomposing garments, the aesthetics of ruin, erosion, and entropy in emerging fashion may signal a deeper response to the glossy unreality of digital perfection.

Dark Fashion| Eco Fashion| Fashion Theory| Grotesque Beauty

REMEMBER ME WHEN I LEAVE

Editorial| Japanese Designers

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONCEPTUAL FASHION : WHEN FASHION THINKS

What happens when fashion stops trying to please and starts to think? Between decay and emptiness, between Derrida and Rei Kawakubo, conceptual fashion can become a meditation: on truth, impermanence, and the self beneath appearance.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

DESERT COUTURE: THE FASHION EVOLUTION OF DUNE ON SCREEN

How directors like David Lynch, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Denis Villeneuve envisioned Dune’s universe, and how it continues to inspire avant-garde fashion.

Art| Cinema| Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory| Futuristic

GROTESQUE BEAUTY

Dissecting fashion's relationship with distorted, dark, and deformed imagery

Dark Fashion| Emerging Designers| Fashion Theory| Grotesque Beauty

THE PASSERBY

Dark Fashion| Editorial| Emerging Designers

DREAMS, OBJECTS, AND SCHOCK VALUE : SCHIAPARELLI AND THE SURREALIST SPIRIT

We explore Elsa Schiaparelli’s relationship with Surrealism, from collaborations with artists like Dalí to how Daniel Roseberry’s recent collections reinterpret those codes for a contemporary audience.

Art| Fashion Theory

BETWEEN RITUAL AND RAWNESS: LEO PROTHMANN IN CONVERSATION WITH L'ABBEYE

Dark Fashion| Eco Fashion| Emerging Designers| Interviews

CLEMENTINE SMITH: UNWEARABLE FASHION, UNLIVABLE LIVES

Designing the Unwearable Inside an Inhospitable World...

Emerging Designers

TOP 10 ARTICLES :

1

INTERVIEW : VICTOR CLAVELLY'S SURREAL FASHION LORE

2

CORROSION AS CRAFT: RETHINKING FASHION THROUGH DECAY

3

THE GOTHIC REBIRTH OF MINIMALISM

4

THE EVOLUTION OF AVANT-GARDE IN FASHION

5

THE PASSERBY

6

HOW MCQUEEN MADE THE FASHION INDUSTRY DESCEND INTO MADNESS

7

WHAT "AVANT-GARDE" REALLY MEANS IN FASHION

8

EXPLORING THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF FISH SKIN FOR FASHION: INTERVIEW WITH ISABELLE TAYLOR

9

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH: 6 TIMES DAVID CRONENBERG INSPIRED RUNWAY DESIGNERS

ARCHIVES :

Untitled, Untethered, Undefined

The new Dover Street Market brand was launched in June with the SS 26 collection of DSM Kei Ninomiya.

Neo Gothic and Neo Futurism

One aesthetic mourns the past. The other imagines the future. Between neo-gothic and neo-futurism, contemporary fashion continues to seek meaning anywhere but in the present.

Dark Fashion| Futuristic| Soft Goth

THE SUMMER IS COMING AND SO IS THE LAST JUDGMENT DAY: HOW TO DRESS "PROPERLY" ?

In summer, the body is no longer concealed. And dressing becomes a ritual of what we chose to elevate.

NIKOLAS SCHRECK - THE RENAISSANCE MONSTER

Artist, writer, filmmaker and former Radio Werewolf frontman, Nikolas Schreck has spent decades exploring the intersections of music, ritual, cinema and mythology. In this in-depth conversation, he reflects on the legacy of Radio Werewolf, his collaboration with Christopher Lee, the controversy of Charles Manson Superstar, and his vision of art as spiritual transmission in an age of digital distraction.

FLESH AS ARCHITECTURE

Flesh As Architecture explores the human body as a constructed form rather than a living subject. e body is treated as a site of erosion - a ruin shaped by time, weight, and stillness. Through restrained movement and sculptural poses, flesh becomes structural. Limbs echo columns, joints resemble supports, and skin carries the surface of decay. What remains is not emotion, but form. The body no longer performs; it stands, monumental and silent, a ruin transformed into a statue.

ANN DEMEULEMEESTER AW25: ROAD TO NEVER

MAINSTREAM DOWNSTREAM

In June 2003, along the quiet waters of Milan’s Naviglio Grande, Carol Christian Poell staged one of the most haunting fashion presentations of the 21st century. Far from the conventional runway, his Spring/Summer 2004 show unfolded on the surface of a canal, where garments and models alike drifted in silence, part procession, part apparition. Echoing the spectral stillness of Millais’s Ophelia, Poell’s vision transformed fashion into ritual, decay into desire, and garments into relics. This article revisits that unforgettable moment, where control gave way to current, and fashion, freed from speed and spectacle…

Art| Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

RAGS AND RICHES

Between memory and marketing, fashion has learned to fake its scars. As luxury brands sell dirt, rips, and wear at a high price, the Dirty Fit trend raises a deeper question: can authenticity be manufactured, or must it be lived? From inherited jewelry to torn runways, this article explores why real wear carries meaning and why pre-damaged fashion often rings hollow.

Eco Fashion| Fashion Theory

QUEERING THE UNIFORM : SUBVERSION, KINK AND THE MILITARISATION OF STYLE

Uniforms were meant to discipline bodies and erase individuality. Yet in the hands of avant-garde designers, they become something else entirely: instruments of desire, rebellion, and identity play. From the fragile adolescent tension of Raf Simons to the hyper-queer provocations of Walter van Beirendonck and the sleek militarised sensuality of Helmut Lang, the uniform is no longer a symbol of obedience but a stage where power, vulnerability, and eroticism collide.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

UNWEARABLE FUTURES : FASHION AS CONCEPTUAL ARCHITECTURE

Avant-garde designers like Iris van Herpen, Gareth Pugh and Hussein Chalayan are redefining fashion as architecture. In this emerging landscape of “unwearable fashion,” garments become sculptural experiments that challenge wearability, identity and the future of the human body.

Art| Fashion Theory| Futuristic

See all the archives editorials