Belgian creative duo Mansour Martin presented their Spring/Summer 2021 sustainable collection on the SPHERE Showroom, the official showroom of the Paris Fashion Week, operated by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.
The look book’s black and white portraits intermingles with the colored photos shot and styled by Benoit Bethume at a 50s building in Brussels featuring models which the designers imagined as residents of the building.
The collection takes on the brutalist architecture theme, designed during the lockdown resulting new awareness also influenced the designers: the relationship to oneself, to the body, to life in the city, which is now organized in a different way.
“It all started with a sketch of an architect’s plan drawn by the designers. The plan of an imaginary building, where motifs of facades, windows, and elevators are intermingled with horizontal cuts representing corridors, rooms, and terraces. In the terraces, figures have been designed for a softer and more poetic life.”
The simplicity of the lines of each of the garments also echoes the purity and sobriety of Brutalism. The collection also sees an artistic collaboration, of painting on clothes, with Aurélien Delahaies.
“We gave Aurélien the architectural plan that we had imagined and designed and gave him the freedom to reinterpret it in his own way to create the motif of the painting. We then worked together on the colors and materials” explain Mansour and Martin.
In creating their brand, one of Mansour and Martin’s objectives was to highlight a multitude of eco-friendly solutions and to offer a selection of respectful, responsible, and sustainable clothing. The pieces are made in France, Belgium, and Portugal, and are, for three-quarters of the collection, totally sustainable. The designers call upon independent manufacturers or small family factories depending on the quantities requested. All the jersey is now totally recycled, made from a French fabric.
