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E-MERGING: Clara Colette Miramon makes your wildest Y2K dreams come true
The Berlin fashion designer takes us into her world full of butterfly emojis, exposed thongs and puffy gems.
“I identify myself a lot through the music I listen to, the movies I like, the books I read, and the shows I watch”
Inspired by subcultures and their own visual language and community, Miramon loves to challenge the idea of outcasts, people who don’t fit in. Drawing from her own experiences, the Berlin-based fashion designer went to a Christian school in England where everyone was wearing school uniforms, dressing the same. “They always played this game called ‘odd one out’, so if you were three people and one had something different for lunch, for example, you were pointed out as the outsider,” she recalls. “It took me a lot of time to realize I didn’t have to be like the others.”
These childhood memories not only made the 27-year-old the person she is today, but also became part of her butterfly season one collection connected to her own research project on how girls present themselves on Instagram. “I thought of these girls who use the butterfly emoji,” she says. “It’s a very specific type of girl, and it’s a culture we kind of developed for ourselves.” For the fashion designer, womanhood is the main topic of her work and something she personally reflects on and talks about with her friends on a daily basis. “Everyone has a unique experience, but they are also homogenized in a way,” she tries to explain. “For me, my own womanhood is often defined by the relationships I have with other women – our love, friendship and discourse about these experiences is what makes it so distinct and powerful.”
With her designs, Miramon explores the complexity of female sexuality and envisions how it can exist outside the male gaze. “In the end, it’s more like a utopian idea, but it’s interesting to question it, to be aware of it and to move out of the way of it,” she wants everybody to know. “Obviously, gender is a social construct, but femininity is something everyone carries within themselves, no matter their gender identity.”
@juulekay is a writer, editor and creative producer based in Berlin taking care of our monthly E-MERGING series. If she’s not hunched over her laptop spotlighting new talents, you’ll find her dropping fun facts in small talk conversations.