Who? Sophia Mazenauer
What? Neo.Fashion.: Graduate Shows and Awards
Where? Berlin Fashion Week
Why designs by Sophia Mazenauer matter?
What’s new becomes old and what’s old can become new again. A circular fashion system is a constant, complex, conversation of cxbndklsfkanap#$^&*((*&^-0987cs!
Designer, Sophia Mazenauer, created a collection called “Generation Chance”. I think the meaning behind her collection asks the question: does her generation have a chance to build best practices in a circular supply/demand system that renews our existing resources? Mazenauer focuses on our appreciation (or lack thereof) of textiles, garments; believing that they deserve to be appreciated. The urge and excitement of something new, quickly fades, we forget, and she says, “new things that have grown old after hours, passed and forgotten and only reminds us of its existence through its restrictive presence. But they, the forgotten ones, who once made us our own heroes for an hour, are now lying in abundance and waiting for their appreciation, which they will never get.”
Well, the ‘forgotten ones lying in abundance’ may become rags or stuffing material, but the demand for fast fashion and landfill statistics tells us differently. thredUP reports, one in two people are throwing their unwanted clothes straight in the trash. The result? 64% of the 32B garments produced each year end up in landfill.
‘Generation Chance” is designed with old textiles and residual materials, a design philosophy Mazenauer expects to be part of her future practice. As an apprentice designer for the Atelier Couture Création Kreuzlingen / CH, she acknowledged her own values of her work to be one of preservation. She says, “important values in my work and my professional future are sustainability, people, animals and environmental protection. Cooperation with like-minded or interested people is important in order to change things for the better together.”
“A Look at EDGE” curates a select few of Neo.Fashion.21 designers whose collections make socially relevant statements and offer storytelling through a fashion lens we don’t often see. The future generations are here, in the present, and are ready to do the work to sustain their future, and, to many, that means the environment they live in. Sophia Mazenauer’s “Generation Chance” is a body of work that shows the artistic, sustainable, and relevant use of, as she calls them, ‘old resources’. The re-use of these old souls are a sight for what’s possible.
Feature image: Designer, Sophia Mazenauer | “Neo.Fashion. Graduate Show” of Best Graduates Show & Award at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week“ at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin September 2021 at Kraftwerk on September 8, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Robert Schlesinger/Getty Images for Neo.Fashion.)
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