Alpha Contest 2026 Application
Alexis Petitjean
Master 2, Fashion Design & Sustainable Design Practices, Designskolen Kolding, Denmark
The Forgotten Dreamers of Tomorrow
The Echo of Futures That Never Were
Fashion often speaks of the future as if it were an endless horizon. The Forgotten Dreamers
of Tomorrow instead begins in the space between memory and speculation, where past visions of tomorrow are reactivated to ask what kind of future can be built from the remnants of yesterday.
At its heart lies a story, The Echo of Futures That Never Were. Through the folds of time walks the Great Traveler, neither of one age nor another, carrying within their steps the echoes of futures that never came to be. Their garments shimmer like relics and prototypes at once, protective shells that unfold into voids, luminous layers that reveal hidden depths. To wear them is to stand at the edge of a singularity, where history collapses into possibility, and time itself is inscribed upon the body. In their passage, the Traveler leaves encrypted traces of lace, fragile yet eternal, a fabric of archives where the memory of what has been and the possibility of what might still come are suspended beyond decay.
The collection translates this myth into a language of form and material. Silhouettes ripple and distort like planets bending light. The archetypal A-line of the 1960s, once a symbol of space-age optimism, is preserved in some garments while collapsing in others, bent inward as though swallowed by a black hole into tunnel-shaped volumes. Voids and openings evoke glass holes and gravitational fields, while layered transparencies invite glimpses of fragility beneath protective structures.
The methods of making are central to the project. Layered textiles combine silk organza with denim or leather, creating structured, luminous surfaces that echo the shine of 1960s synthetics but with sustainable intent. Vintage fabric sourcing brings archival weight into the present, most notably a French silk organza stripe from the 1980s, kept as a literal artifact of the past and reinterpreted for the future. A garment of 3D-printed lace is sequenced and assembled into a made-to-measure piece, transforming lace into an artifact that preserves both past histories and futures not yet realized. Here, lace is both material and metaphor, a language of preservation holding knowledge suspended across time. Embellishments and embroidery-like details enrich the surfaces, embedding traces of code and memory within fabric.
All fabrics used in the collection are deadstock French materials sourced in Paris, ensuring both sustainable practice and exceptional quality. They include silk organza in multiple colors, French cotton denim, French caviar linen, lyocell jersey, and the vintage striped silk organza release from the 1980s. Together they form a vocabulary where past, present, and future coexist in layered resonance.
But the garments are not only artifacts or experiments. They are meant to be lived in. They are designed for people who are sophisticated yet versatile, romantic yet mysterious, sometimes distant but luminous when touched by light. People with a curiosity for science, for futurism, for speculation. When they wear these garments, they become travelers themselves, moving through epochs as much as through styles and materials, wrapped in fabrics that seem both archival and futuristic. They feel protected, as though shielded by a sophisticated armor, yet this protection is never heavy or closed. It allows light, wind, and time itself to pass through, creating garments that float on the body like an airy defense, both shelter and openness at once. To wear them is to feel brave and secure, but also in motion, shimmering like ice in the sun and revealing the hidden beauty of what lies beneath.
Ultimately, The Forgotten Dreamers of Tomorrow is both myth and prototype, narrative and method. It imagines clothing as a temporal archive, where lace acts as its central vessel of memory, an eternal fabric of echoes, and where sustainability, storytelling, and craft converge to offer not only a vision of what to wear, but a way of inhabiting time itself.
Womenswear, Inter-temporal tech couture
Embroidery, 3D Print, Deadstock and vintage fabric sourcing, 3d printed fabric, Retro-futuristic re-interpretation, Fabric layering, Story-lead design, Surveys, Made to measurements, Temporal layering, 100% natural fibers
Denim, Leather, Lyocell, Silk organza, Flexible TPU, Caviar Linen
Photoshop, Illustrator, Rhinoceros, Clo 3d, Bambu lab, Autodesk Fusion, Prusa sclicer