A Q&A with Kevin Germanier: Inside His Upcoming Exhibition: Les Monstrueuses.

PERFECT: Good morning, Kevin. How are you?

KEVIN GERMANIER: I’m good, how about you?

PERFECT: I’m okay. A bit cold!

KEVIN GERMANIER: Yeah? Same. Here in Paris the weather is awful.

PERFECT: How are things going, generally?

KEVIN GERMANIER: Very busy, but I won’t complain! The exhibition was intense: going through my archives, realising, “Oh my God, I did that … and that …” I even found sketches from when I was seven — it felt like I was digging a little too deep. But it was a good exercise.

Interviewer: I can only imagine those sketches from when you were seven.

KEVIN GERMANIER: It was my best work!

PERFECT: Okay. So: you just sent me the press release for the exhibition, and everyone’s very excited. But maybe for people who don’t know your work — can you explain, in your own words, what you do, your core principles etc.

KEVIN GERMANIER: Sure. Germanier is a sustainable brand, but I don’t claim just to be sustainable — that’s simply the only way I know how to be creative. Constraints force me to be more inventive. Since my Central Saint Martins days in London, I’ve been upcycling what others throw away: beads, old fabrics … I call it “trash,” but we make beautiful things from it.
My aesthetic is bold, dynamic, and vibrant — when you wear a Germanier piece, you’re stealing the show. Ironically, I usually dress in black, but the brand is for anyone who fits into the work.

And on upcycling: yes, it’s trendy now, but I wasn’t the first. My grandmother used to patch things up when she couldn’t afford new clothes. What I bring to Germanier is the colour and the transformation, making what was once waste feel like treasure. Over the last three seasons, we’ve even closed the haute couture calendar in Paris, which is a big deal for us.

PERFECT: How did you become the designer you are? Have you always been into maximalism and bright, over-the-top pieces?

KEVIN GERMANIER: Funny enough — no, not really. As a student, I never used colourful beads. I wasn’t even super passionate about the fashion industry — I just loved making clothes.

As a kid in Switzerland, I draped bedsheets around my siblings. I was fascinated by bodies and anatomy, like playing “Frankenstein” with fabric. When I went to CSM, I was broke, so I scavenged trade markets for stained cotton and scraps. That’s how upcycling began — not as a statement, but out of necessity.

Later, when I worked in Asia — in Hong Kong — I met someone who was literally throwing away glass beads. I thought they were magical, asked if I could take them, and he said yes. That became a big part of my signature.
Then, during an internship, I won a Louis Vuitton project. They offered me a job, but I told my mom I’d finish my BA. So I returned to CSM, graduated, and joined them. For my BA collection, I challenged myself: “No black, everything shiny, every colour.” That became my DNA — a joke to myself at first, but ten years later here we are.

Interviewer: Your sense of colour is so good. How do you decide which colours to mix, when things can go so over the top

KEVIN GERMANIER: Honestly, it comes from limitation. I might not have enough red beads for a full dress, so I mix them with green or purple — whatever I have. That constraint becomes a safety net: “If it looks bad, I can say I ran out of beads.” (Laughs)
Over time, I just experimented more. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t. But that experimentation feels honest.
Also, I think part of it comes from childhood: my grandfather ran a car repair workshop, and I used to watch him mixing car paints — neon, metallic, tacky colours that I loved. Maybe that’s where it began. I tell my team: “Mix the colours you think are the worst together — it might feel wrong, but that’s where something new comes from.”

Interviewer: Let’s talk about your new exhibition, then. Can you walk us through it?

KEVIN GERMANIER: Yes. The exhibition is at Mudac in Lausanne, and I’m really proud of it. It’s my carte blanche: I have 300 m² to do what I want.

I’ve divided it into four rooms. Room One is called “Not Dead Yet.” This is what people expect from a fashion show — but reversed. Instead of the clothes being judged by the visitor, the clothes are “judging” you. I’m showing 21 looks from my BA work to my latest haute couture, not in chronological order but by colour gradient. It’s a reminder that with a brand, you constantly have to reinvent — “same but different.”

Room Two is “Still Alive.” Here, I highlight the business reality. Fashion isn’t just glamour. I show pieces like my collaborations (for example with the Olympics), the original Björk dress, posters I’ve made, and more. The idea is to present Germanier as a creative atelier, not just a fashion brand — I’m open to making everything from trains to restaurants, whatever the challenge.

Room Three: “Einstein.” (Yes, a little wink to my Swiss side.) This is about the messy, aggressive backstage work — cutting, gluing, beading. I want visitors to see the artisans, the people behind every bead and stitch. There’s a screen showing my team making things, because I don’t want it to feel magical in a vacuum. The craft is rough, honest.

Room Four is My “selfish” room — a fully beaded gallery. Everything is covered in beads: furniture, vases, lamps, tables — like a little bead flat. And I’m launching furniture in March. It’s my way of ending with a flourish, an opening into another dimension.

Interviewer: There’s such a depth behind the work — more than just bright dresses.

KEVIN GERMANIER: Exactly. For me, it was important to spotlight my artisans. You can’t just flash a dress and say “sustainable.” Some of these dresses take six months to make. With AI now, people assume everything can happen instantly, but that’s not the case. Handcrafting — with its little “mistakes” — is what adds soul.

PERFECT: Do you think of your work more as wearable fashion, or as art?

KEVIN GERMANIER: That’s a very good question. To test it, I actually went “undercover” to see what people were saying about my clothes. I wore a hat, a hoodie, scarf — very low-key — and listened. There was one guy who said, “But where would I go in this? I can’t even go to the toilet.” And I thought: Perfect. I never said my clothes were comfortable. I never marketed them as “most practical outfit to go grocery shopping in.”

Room one in the exhibition is about grabbing attention and saying, “Look, stop, what is that?” Once people are curious, they can dig in. Then room two is more grounded — that’s where they see what is actually buyable. Yes, there are jackets that are very expensive (depending on detail), and yes, there are beaded bags which are more accessible. I want people to understand both sides.

I don’t necessarily see myself only as an artist — that sounds a little arrogant. But if people want to call me one, I won’t argue. The fact is, after five or six years, Germanier is self-sufficient. We don’t rely on outside investors. I pay my team. We make what we believe in. For me, that’s already winning.

PERFECT: That makes a huge amount of sense. Usually, I go to fashion exhibitions that feel very flat — just mannequins, maybe some text — but yours clearly has layers.

KEVIN GERMANIER: That was the goal. I don’t want this to be just for fashion insiders. I want a kid to walk in and go, “Wow,” but also someone who doesn’t know anything about fashion to understand something real, something honest…

“Les Monstrueuses – Carte blanche à Kévin Germanier”, opens at mudac in Lausanne on 7 November 2025 and runs until 22 March 2026.