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.

The Avant-Garde Fashion Rite

When Fashion stops presenting clothes and starts staging ceremonies.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU :

TO BE WORN OR TO BE WATCHED

In light of recent exhibitions like Demna’s retrospective at the Kering headquarters and Rick Owens’ Temple of Love, we explore the tension between fashion as something to be worn and fashion as something to be preserved and exhibited.

Art| Fashion Theory

THE PASSERBY

Dark Fashion| Editorial| Emerging Designers

FASHION AS RITUAL: COSTUMING THE SACRED AND THE OCCULT

Fashion has always flirted with the sacred, but a new generation of designers is turning garments into rituals. From the techno-shamanic visions of House of Malakai to the monastic mythologies of Rick Owens, clothing becomes more than appearance, it becomes invocation. These pieces function like talismans, charged with symbolism, intention, and transformation. In an age of digital noise, fashion begins to reclaim its oldest power: ritual.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

HAIRSTYLES AS CULTURAL CODES

Hair has always carried meaning beyond adornment. It is a language of ancestry, divinity, and resistance. Through Yoruba philosophy, African ritual, and contemporary fashion, this piece explores how the act of styling -braiding, covering, shaving- becomes both memory and message, both art and prayer.

Art| Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

THESE FURNITURE AND DECOR BRANDS WILL HELP YOU LIVE INSIDE A WORK OF ART

Think of homes that feel more like installations, minimal to the extreme, anti cozy, sometimes even intentionally disorienting.

Art| Design| Fashion Theory

ANN DEMEULEMEESTER AW25: ROAD TO NEVER

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

FROM KILN TO CATWALK: THE CRAFTSMANSHIP BEHIND ROKH'S FRACTURED MOTION

In revisiting some of the most thought-provoking moments from recent seasons, Rokh’s Autumn/Winter 2025 show stands out as a masterclass in sculptural tailoring and conceptual storytelling.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory| Soft Goth

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

Dark Fashion| Eco Fashion| Emerging Designers| Interviews

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

CLEMENTINE SMITH: UNWEARABLE FASHION, UNLIVABLE LIVES

Designing the Unwearable Inside an Inhospitable World...

Emerging Designers

Weight of Despair

The Emotional Weight of Loss, Migration, and Memory. How Historical Trauma Transformed into Fashion.

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

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

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.

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 :

Weight of Despair

The Emotional Weight of Loss, Migration, and Memory. How Historical Trauma Transformed into Fashion.

The Avant-Garde Fashion Rite

When Fashion stops presenting clothes and starts staging ceremonies.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory

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

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