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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CLEMENTINE SMITH: UNWEARABLE FASHION, UNLIVABLE LIVES

Designing the Unwearable Inside an Inhospitable World...

Emerging Designers

MISTAKING STONE FOR SKY

Art| Dark Fashion| Editorial| Emerging Designers| Grotesque Beauty

PROTECTION FROM SOME ETERNITY

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

THE GENESIS OF EMILIA

THE EVOLUTION OF AVANT-GARDE IN FASHION

Tracing avant-garde’s path from its revolutionary roots of Elsa Schiaparelli, Rei Kawakubo, and McQueen to today’s branches of gothic elegance.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory| Japanese Designers

7 GOTHIC FRAGRANCES FAR FROM BORING

Want to smell like bloody birthday cake, chilly nights in London, and burnt blunt?

Dark Fashion| Soft Goth

Untitled, Untethered, Undefined

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

INTERVIEW : VICTOR CLAVELLY'S SURREAL FASHION LORE

Blending video game design, CGI, and couture craftsmanship, Victor Clavelly transforms technology into poetry. His creations stretch the limits of the body, reimagining what fashion - and reality - can become.

Emerging Designers| Futuristic| Interviews

L’ABBEYE'S GUIDE TO A GOTHIC SUMMER

How to mourn a cool breeze in style…

Accessories| Dark Fashion| Soft Goth

IT'S NOT JUSTE JEWELLERY. IT'S MIA GOSSET.

Mia Gosset continually rethinks what jewellery and objects can be. Here, she shares her process, inspirations, and the vision behind her practice, uncovering what truly makes Mia Gosset, Mia Gosset.

Accessories| Art| Emerging Designers| Interviews

ELENA DAWSON : THE GARDEN OF FORGOTTEN MEMORIES, A BOTANICAL ELEGY OF SOFTH GOTHIC

Elena Dawson is not a brand. It is a state of being, a phenomenon whose aura resists all attempts at categorization within fashion’s coordinate systems. Her creative work is a secluded sanctuary, a chapel on the outskirts of the industry. Here, a particular, deeply intimate romance is born : the romance of a soft gothic, devoid of vampiric pomp and grotesquery, yet imbued with Victorian melancholy and the stoic grace of decay.

Dark Fashion| Eco Fashion| Fashion Theory| Soft Goth

HOW 15TH-CENTURY GERMAN MERCENARIES BECAME AVANT-GARDE ICONS

Centuries before punk or avant-garde existed, German mercenaries were already slashing fabric, clashing colours, and defying social codes. The Landsknechts of the 15th century turned rebellion into style, and their fearless self-expression still echoes across today’s runways.

Dark Fashion| Fashion Theory| Grotesque Beauty

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

CORROSION AS CRAFT: RETHINKING FASHION THROUGH DECAY

What if beauty wasn’t preserved, but allowed to rust? Justin Matringe turns decay into design, crafting garments that corrode the very idea of fashion itself.

Eco Fashion| Emerging Designers| Fashion Theory| Interviews

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