Stéphanie Baechler is a trained textile and fashion designer who graduated from the College of Art and Design in Lucerne, Switzerland. She was nominated in 2009 for her thesis for the Design Prize Switzerland and has already won various other design awards in her young career. Curious, imaginative and courageous, she incorporates art and contemporary topics in her designs, forging intuitive understanding with conceptual imagination. She not only works by hand but also uses the computer, to follow a playful process of deconstruction and reassembly to derive at fresh perspectives on seemingly familiar themes and forms. The transition to a three-dimensional approach required in fashion design set off a chain of developments in her thinking which started off as an exploration of the mineral world, her graduation collection eventually researched elegance in relationship to the space we occupy in the world, both in a physical sense and psychologically, socially and politically.

Her surreal world is a manipulation of textiles and invites us to see textile from a complete different angle. Her main inspiration originates from minerals. Dug up from the earth and grounds to glaze components and pigments, in her vision they mysteriously regain their solid state on the surface of the fired pieces, adding durability, colour and brilliance to the work. With a main focus on rocks, gems and ores, studying their varying substance densities she creates wearable minerals.

” In negotiating this disparity, transition and transformation are essential: stone becomes fabric, modelled to follow the body while it is moving and to turn the figure into sculpture as soon as it comes to rest – suggesting an effortless, casual flow from fashion to art and back again. Several elements taken from the mineral world return into the design. “

www.stephaniebaechler.com