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Camiel Fortgens - The Poetics of Distortion

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“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring,” stated Marilyn Monroe. Camiel Fortgens has made this his motto, or rather, the guiding principle of a style that fuses the art of the accident with technical skill, improvisation with classic tailoring. One opening leads to another, a raw edge unravels, while a shirt flirts with a hoodie in a trompe-l’œil interplay where this self-taught virtuoso confidently embraces a childlike imprecision. No logos here, just a stitched-on rectangle.

Making his debut on the Official Calendar of Paris Fashion Week Menswear, Camiel Fortgens turns error into statement, and play into a stylistic principle, in a neo-punk spirit, “I like to reveal the seams of the game, to turn certainties on their head.”

For Spring-Summer 2026, the Dutch designer, whose collections are already stocked in 60 stores worldwide, returns to the origins of a wardrobe story, the timeless staples of American style, sweatshirts, shirts, denim, jackets, even EastPak backpacks, reimagined in sun-bleached, washed-out versions, as if faded by an imaginary sun, somewhere where the Beach Boys might cross paths with Erwin Wurm.

Workwear falls for the kind of meticulous detailing the Japanese adore, a windbreaker and vest seem flattened by an invisible tornado, a trench coat tossed over a bag becomes a bag itself, and absurdity slips into a rendezvous between city and poetry.

Just like at Duran Lantink, office-style carpet is glued to the floor, confronted by fake rocks and a giant poster of a fantasised desert, the art of turning the ordinary into a happening. What a performance.

 

Laurence Benaïm.

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