Gabrielle Szwarcenberg

Got It Dog-Eared

ITS Creative Excellence Award 10x10x10
Rewarding Honours powered by OTB
Rewarding Honours powered by Vogue Eyewear part of EssilorLuxottica

To designer Gabrielle Szwarcenberg, paper is a daily accomplice. The ultimate prototyping medium, it captures ideas in notes, it hides secrets in envelopes, offers future guidance, and prompts reflection through dog-eared corners of books. Her collection delves into childhood pursuits as rites of passage, celebrating how we transform boredom into ingenious creativity, from cat’s cradles and marble games to paper aeroplanes. Inspired by renowned 1960s beatnik Harry Smith, who collected over 250 paper planes now hidden in museum archives, she revived these artefacts through the coupé technique and by working on fabric as if paper. Embracing an art-for-art’s-sake ethos, the ephemeral looks provide an inadvertent retrospective of 20th-century graphic anthropology.

ITS Creative Excellence Award 10x10x10

All finalists will receive:

€10K bursary
a 10 days creative Residency held between Trieste and signature locations of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy
10 months feature in the “Borderless” Exhibition at ITS Arcademy – Museum of Art in Fashion

Rewarding Honours powered by OTB

The OTB Group will offer a training day visit of the headquarters of OTB and Staff International will be offered to the young designers who will be able to see first-hand the production stages of the garments and accessories of the Group’s brands.

Motivation

It's wonderful to have fresh, creative minds driven by passion, curiosity, and dedication. They listened attentively, engaged thoughtfully, and asked intelligent, professional questions that inspired us even more as we shared the details of our daily work. We would love to have more opportunities for exchanges like this within the company.

Rewarding Honours powered by Vogue Eyewear part of EssilorLuxottica

Rewarding Honours powered by Vogue Eyewear, part of EssilorLuxottica, will include: a full day at the prestigious EssilorLuxottica Tortona Experience Center (located at Via Tortona 35, Milan). The selected finalist will present the project to an internal audience and engage with attendees during a dedicated networking session. Additionally, the finalist will be immersed in the operational dynamics of the EssilorLuxottica Design Team, experiencing the creative and design process of the eyewear category.

Motivation

With remarkable simplicity, Gabrielle captures the essence of a complex creative process, perfectly embodying the light-hearted spirit of Vogue Eyewear. Her approach resonates beautifully with the brand’s philosophy, where shapes, colors, and lines are crafted to inspire and empower individuals to explore their own paths of personal growth. Her work underscores the vital role of curiosity as a fundamental and indispensable creative value. Matteo Battiston, Chief Design Officer at EssilorLuxottica: "Gabrielle’s ability to transform the language of play into a constructive tool lends her project credibility, both technically and creatively."

Project selection motivation

The bold and sophisticated freedom with which the designer manipulates and shapes an idea, a material, and an imaginary world brings freshness and inspired insights. The skill with which the concept of a historical archive transforms into irreverent yet wearable fashion, immediate yet meticulously crafted, is a memorable and mature element. The garments embody a compelling design culture, one that feels close to the familiar act of working with paper patterns, yet is pushed by the designer towards daring aesthetic elaborations.