The MD’s Favourite Pieces - FASHIONCLASH 2025

We asked several Maastricht Diplomat journalists to share their favourite exhibitions and pieces from this year’s FASHIONCLASH Festival, and why these stood out to them. 

Now in its 17th edition, FASHIONCLASH is an international, multidisciplinary fashion festival that provides emerging designers and artists with a platform to showcase bold, boundary-pushing work. This year’s edition took place in Maastricht from November 14 to 16, 2025. 

Below, our writers reflect on the works that resonated most with them, emotionally, politically, and artistically.

“Kanta to the World” by Kantamanto Social Club 

The work I found most inspiring was a part of the New Fashion Narratives exhibition at Bureau Europa. This section featured a documentary-style video of the Kantamanto Social Club, a collective that uses upcycling as a form of cultural resistance and activism. The video explained that their project was rooted in rebranding the fashion industry as a more sustainable and community-centred system. 

The space was set up like a cinema, with chairs facing a screen in a dark room. When my friend and I entered the room, it was empty, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere fully. The space was also enhanced with some of the collective's upcycled clothes displayed on hangers around us. 

To me, seeing the collective's commitment to upcycling was particularly interesting since I had recently learned that the world already holds “enough clothes to clothe 6-7 generations of people”. This absurd fact, I feel, has made me even more conscious of the devastating ecological and social consequences of the fashion industry. Similarly, the significant rise of fast and “ultra-fast” fashion in recent years also demonstrates how deeply entrenched overconsumption has become. In light of this, I have been looking at my own consumption patterns and have successfully shifted almost entirely towards ecological and circular practices. I especially believe that using second-hand platforms like Vinted or buying clothes from thrift shops allows us, on a micro-scale, to minimise overproduction and the environmental issues associated with the fashion industry.

The Kantamanto Social Club serves as a perfect example of this shift, promoting “community-driven innovation, cultural agency, and sustainability through reuse, repair, and remanufacturing”. Also, by centring informal workers and redistributing power toward them, the collective challenges systemic injustices and advocates for change in the broader global fashion narrative. As they explain:

“Today’s fashion industry is built on a take-make-waste model that harms people and the planet. To change this, we believe in the power of global collaboration rooted in transparency and trust. By bringing together the lived experience and inherently sustainable practices of informal communities, often found at either ends of the textile supply chain, with innovations from formal fashion spaces, we can build a fairer, circular fashion future.”

I was especially interested to learn that the collective grounds its circular model in the expertise of communities across the Global South, such as those in Ghana, Egypt, and India, whose sustainable practices have historically been overlooked. By learning from and supporting these communities, as they manage ever-growing amounts of post-consumer textile waste, the Kantamanto Social Club challenges those dominant systems of production and consumption. Ultimately, I felt this mini exhibition really demonstrated the powerful force of collective creativity and circular thinking in our increasingly capitalist and hyper-consumerist society. I believe it offers a much-needed vision of a fairer, more sustainable future for the fashion world.

“Amor? Luta! [Love? Fight!]” by Margarida Coelho

The artist Margarida Coelho, a feminist designer, invites us to a personal story about the tradition of her hometown, Viana do Castelo, in Portugal. Her focus lies in women’s rights and gender-based violence, as Portugal is a country that preserves many traditional patriarchal values. Women are in an ongoing fight for gender equality. This concerns reproductive rights, body autonomy and domestic labour.

Amor? Luta! is a project that was exhibited in the form of a film. To both sides of the screen on the wall, the. Coelho aims to revolutionise traditions that oppress. She collaborates alongside lifelong weavers. Aldina Borlida is one of the interviewed weavers. It characterises her whole life and the lives of female family members to a great extent. “The tradition goes way back in her family”, she states. It’s considered empowering and independent ever since the weavers earned their own money and created something meaningful all by themselves.  Women have been wearing them in everyday life, including work. The length has been a little below the knees for practical reasons. 

The folklore costumes are a dress and above an apron with a small, hidden pocket to store money. The first step is the design, then the colours are chosen. Then the weaving and sewing for details can begin. Traditionally, the pouch represents a feminine shape and contains a rosary as an emblem. 

The future of the Portuguese folklore costume remains uncertain. Over the years, the festivities committee has restricted the weaver’s creative freedom, demanding that the length be all the way down to the ankles. Institutions don’t recognise and support the weavers. The women are aware that without that, the tradition will go extinct one day.  

Break Tradition with Tradition

This collaboration with the feminist artist Coelho made the weavers look at tradition from a new perspective. The weavers say that it felt different, out of the norm, and unusual to create the aprons with such non-traditional symbols, directly connected to 1974's Portuguese revolution, and liberation: pink and purple flowers, red roses, white guns,  a red and yellow megaphone, and fists in multiple colours. It was the creation of the traditional costume just with a feminist layer.

On the other hand, the interviewed weavers state that they love designing and creating new drawings, which makes them feel excited. 

For the Portuguese artist, Coelho, it was her goal to make people question their own traditions and what comes with them. “It is not as unchangeable as we think,” she says. One of the protesters says, “It’s important to remember the past, but it is more important to evolve”.

Feminist Protest

During the traditional festivities in August 2020 in Viana do Costelo, women from all generations came together to protest, wearing the traditional costumes transformed with the feminist layer. The demands of the women are clear:

1. Being a woman is not just being a mother, wife and caregiver. Amor? Luta!

2. Being a woman is not being an unpaid domestic worker. Amor? Luta!

3. Being a woman is not being a target of violence, objectification and control.  Amor? Luta!

4. Being a woman is not having to hide and protect constantly. Amor? Luta!

5. Being a woman is not just being modest, sensitive, kind. Amor? Luta!

6. Being a woman is not an impediment. Amor? Luta!

7. Being a woman is not having less capabilities and ambitions. Amor? Luta!

8. Being a woman is not  having to sacrifice personal fulfillment for the wellbeing of the other. Amor? Luta!

9. Tradition is not unchangeable. Amor? Luta!

10. Amor? Luta! Demands change. It requires breaking the tradition of patriarchal control. Amor? Luta!

Opinion

This exhibition touched upon the topic of women's clothing. Within a patriarchal system, we often see a shift of the actual problem to debating about what women wear. The personal example that Coelho chose is relevant for today’s fight for equality globally. I found it ironic that the traditional dresses are much shorter, despite the argumentation from the conservative to mandatorily make them longer, which is supposedly traditional. 

More from Amor? Luta! 

Watch the artwork here.

“Fiosk: A Place To Meet And Design” by Fiona Elisa Carnuccio

“Fiosk: A Place To Meet And Design”, an artwork by Fiona Elisa Carnuccio, was exhibited as one of the “New Narratives” at Bureau Europa at this year’s Fashionclash in Maastricht. But why Fiosk? “Fiosk” is a neologism. A Kiosk is a corner store popular in Germany and Switzerland. The artist Carnuccio decided to exchange the “K” with an “F”. The “F” represents either “Fabric”, “Fashion”, or her own name, “Fiona”, she states. Fiosk is a mobile platform that invites people to engage with fashion. 

As a journalist reporting, I was kindly introduced to textile designer and artist Carnuccio from Biel, Switzerland, by one of the curators during my visit. Over the course of four months, for four days a week, Carnuccio took her unique idea to many different community-based spaces, introducing it to multiple people in her hometown. Some visitors brought their own clothing, including a T-shirt with a hole or a pair of ripped pants. It’s a joint creative act that raises awareness on the potential longevity of clothing as it is repaired. 

She seeks to bring new life to clothing that’s often thrown away, as it’s generally cheaper to buy new. However, it’s about more than repairing and fixing, but also about exchanging conversations and experiences that connect the communities. Reflecting on the value of things, encountering sustainability, and listening to each other’s stories with care, while collaborating on the upcycling process, were all part of it as well. The dialogue includes coming to an agreement on what’s fair in terms of price.

During our conversation, Carnuccio pointed to the role of capitalism. She feels we have little time and freedom to rethink, reflect and repair. I really admire her ability to work with fabrics and garments, wishing to have such skills myself. Whenever I desire to learn and practice a new skill, I wonder when I should do so. “It’s not about perfect repair”, and “learning by doing” are two statements that stuck with me. They motivate me to carve out the time to learn something new, even though it’s difficult to do so.

Carnuccio is emphasising that her project offers a starting point, not a solution. What the Fiosk can offer is a place to resist and boycott the fast-fashion industry and celebrate the meaning of textiles. However, she has a vision: “A city with a FIOSK on every corner. Bright, bold and familiar.” Right before I left, she handed me a newspaper/ brochure she had written, which provided information. I sensed her passion and dedication while listening. In such moments, I feel inspired and hopeful. To encounter and engage with someone who truly envisions a future, the opposite of what environmental scientists predict and how politicians act.

After “Fiosk”, walking once through the full shopping streets of Maastricht, on the contrary, lets me doubt and worry about the impact of this mass consumption on our future. For many, their present is already so impacted. It should also be our concern, regardless of how it impacts us specifically. Carnuccio touches upon our perception of “the future” as something that happens without our influence. She believes the future is ours to create. 

I agree with Carnuccio. In the majority of public discourse, there’s a lack of positive and realistic visions. As important as thematising the present is, with all its problems, we need to steer the conversation in a direction that encourages us to act. We can analyse our problems all we want and watch, but that won't change our present or future. I am confident and hopeful that imagining a world from scratch, without limiting ourselves by the rules and barriers of the capitalist system we were all born into, is a fundamental step. From there, another starting point and not the solution, we can act jointly and collaborate towards a desirable future.