For his final show as creative director of the Spanish contemporary house’s more experimental label CamperLab, Achilles Ion Gabriel took inspiration from his childhood in the polar winters of Lapland.
Centered around a hundred-foot-tall circular curtain, hovering above raw wood flooring, the stage set a balance of beauty and roughness that permeated the collection. The Finnish designer wanted to evoke a harsh, snow-blanketed landscape, where isolation contrasts with clarity and beauty. Some moments read as apocalyptic.
Gabriel avoided glamour in casting, searching for “characters” instead of traditionally beautiful or aesthetically perfect models. It resulted in a mix of street-cast individuals and pros of all ages in pieces that subverted traditional gender codes and silhouettes, underlining Gabriel’s sometimes confrontational approach to fashion norms.
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They wore weather-beaten leather bombers and coats, roughed-up waxed cotton, long-pile wools, deliberately dirtied denim layered with racer-back tanks and jewelry. These materials were made to represent his idea of “wearable imperfection.”
All of the pieces were gender-free, and he matched them to the individual during the dressing process.
Shoes, always central to the overarching Camper brand ethos, were particularly big and bold this season. Gabriel brought in elongated, pointy shoes, a deviation from the brand’s typically casual and chunky aesthetic, which provided a stark, almost formal contrast to the distressed outerwear and oversized garments. Accessories played a key role — as they do in brand sales — with every model carrying a handbag. Gabriel downsized classic bags and added exaggerated metal buckles.
The final model walked in an oversized trench wrapped as a voluminous skirt, a showpiece Gabriel said will likely not be produced. The ad-hoc effect added to his story. “It’s not like a thrift store — it’s flirting with that kind of idea, but elevated,” he said.
“I love combining ugly and beauty, I think that is the most interesting with someone. If something is too beautiful, I find it boring,” he said.
Following Gabriel’s departure at the end of January, design will be taken over by an in-house creative team.