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Visions Episode 17: Technique, a foundation for creativity

August 18, 2026
Première Vision Paris
Visions is a series of forward-looking articles that explores the world of tomorrow — its contours, models, and challenges. Through the eyes of experts from various fields, the Visions series undertakes an exploration of our societies, adopting multiple viewpoints to address several questions: How can we imagine the future today? What emerging trends or subtle signals should we pay attention to identify and anticipate new models and ways of living, creating, producing, and consuming? By gathering observations, analyses, and future-oriented insights in fields ranging from multidisciplinary creation to economics, sustainability, and new technologies, Première Vision aims to inform, inspire and provide key resources for creative Fashion professionals.

The

La Cambre National School of Visual Arts

vision draws inspiration from all the arts. The fashion department, led by Tony Delcampe, has made the garment its North Star and technique the core of its teaching. This distinctive approach holds valuable lessons for the entire industry, which benefits from the school's finest talent.

Which school trained Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, winner of the 2026 ANDAM Grand Prize? Here’s a clue: the designer is Belgian. She learned her craft at La Cambre, Brussel’s public National School of Visual Arts, founded in 1926, before cutting her teeth at Balenciaga and Givenchy. The winner of the Fashion Jury Grand Prix at the Hyères International Festival 2025 is also a graduate. Among its recent alumni, La Cambre also counts the creative directors of the most prestigious French luxury fashion houses: Anthony Vaccarello (Saint Laurent), Nicolas di Felice (ex-Courrèges), Julien Dossena (ex-Paco Rabanne), Marine Serre, Louis Gabriel Nouchi, Julien Klausner (Dries Van Noten), Matthieu Blazy at Chanel, and many more. At the September edition of the show, 12 silhouettes are being presented in a dedicated space, to show the vision of this unique school.

A forward-looking vision of fashion

It is not in the establishment's culture to boast about its success by displaying a list of its alumni. But the 40th anniversary of the fashion department has brought this educational institution with an impeccable track record into the spotlight. The top schools are a good barometer of creative trends. At La Cambre, the limited number of students (around twenty in the first year) makes it possible to work on an almost individual basis. One thing is certain: Tony Delcampe, head of the fashion department since 1999, embodies a vision. A former student himself, he has always advocated “forward-looking fashion”, bucking the trend towards homogenization that has characterized design over the past few years.

A forward-looking vision of fashion

The school takes an interdisciplinary approach. “The founder, architect Henry Van de Velde, sought from the outset to combine the major arts and the (so-called) minor arts, the Fine Arts and applied arts,” says Tony Delcampe. In an increasingly polarized and siloed world, this multidisciplinary approach reflects a broader societal recognition that the fashion industry must be approached holistically and draw inspiration from all the arts.

“Fashion training has evolved considerably. In the beginning, there was no school in Belgium’s French-speaking community; the Antwerp Academy was the leading institution. Everything had to be created. The focus was more on creative, artistic and poetic expression, so more on individuality. We were involved with the Hyères Festival from the beginning, as we needed to make a name for ourselves internationally. These events gave us that opportunity.”

Garments, nothing but garments

Tony Delcampe’s appointment as the head of the fashion department coincided with the consolidation of the major luxury fashion houses. “Along with this restructuring of the fashion houses came a shift towards a more product-driven approach to fashion while, at the same time, Belgian and Japanese designers remained firmly rooted in artistic expression. When I took over the department, I asked myself what role a school like ours should play. Obviously, we shouldn’t be following market trends but I would say that we have to stay ahead of them.” The questions raised by the department’s academic director are relevant to the entire fashion industry. The question “What must a designer know how to do when they graduate?” echoes the debates that have been running through the luxury industry for some time. He has an answer for the designer’s role: “They must know how to express themselves but also understand all the subtleties of a garment. They must be capable of talking to the couture atelier heads and understanding the needs of the industry.”

©La Cambre

Solid technical grounding: the prerequisite for any form of artistic expression

Since taking up the role, his commitment to helping students develop a solid grounding has shaped the curriculum design. “We’ve placed a very strong emphasis on technique. We consider it a foundation for creativity; it has become our DNA. Things have changed over the past 27 years, but one thing remains essential: the students master the techniques required for every type of garment; they become fluent in every garment category. In addition, they benefit from the multidisciplinary theoretical grounding they receive (drawing, architecture, art history, sculpture, etc.). One thing has changed, however, since his own student days. In the past, the students were expected to produce a collection in their very first year. This is the case in many fashion schools. La Cambre has taken a different direction. Technique is learned on a mannequin.

“We don’t make mood boards and we don’t just draw fashion. We make fashion. We have always worked in 3D. We don’t start with a sheet of paper, but with a length of fabric and some pins, and we get started. That doesn’t mean that we’re draping. It means that we’re constructing the garment.”

And AI? It is not relevant, for the same reasons. For Tony Delcampe, it often “generates a visual soup of images using ingredients picked up here and there”. For this reason, it is banned.

A design-led, spatially oriented and often maximalist approach

At a time when the industry is placing renewed emphasis on materials, craftsmanship and know-how, it is only natural that La Cambre graduates should be well equipped to meet these expectations. In their third year, the students focus exclusively on menswear, which traditionally took a backseat in fashion education. “Suit construction is important, however, which is why we devote an entire year to it,” says the director. “In the first year of the Master, students begin creating what we call ‘corps moteurs’ (three-dimensional forms)”. They produce ten of these per year, each representing a stage in their creative process. He explains what this involves: “Starting from one or two images of their own, with which they develop a deeply individual connection that goes beyond simple illustration, they construct an initial form using different materials (nails, screws, wood, etc.). The result is a structure. From the first three-dimensional form to the tenth, their work evolves throughout the year. Little by little, they must transpose the techniques borrowed from various creative fields beyond fashion and adapt them into something that will gradually come to resemble and define their approach to garment design. Throughout this process, they work through all kinds of questions: how can a nail be translated into the language of clothing? How can fabric be worked with a wood chisel to become a garment? In this way, they invent new assembly methods.” In the Master program, the ten silhouettes they create over the year become a collection.

©La Cambre

Language is integral to the creative process

©La Cambre

The school embraces certain distinctive features, bucking what its director sees as the growing homogenization of fashion education. While many fashion schools now teach in English, La Cambre recruits French-speaking students: “for us, creative thinking is inseparable from language.” While the communications of many large groups promote perfumes, cosmetics, bags, etc., the school restores the garment to center stage. The fashion department director’s analysis reflects many of the issues that are being debated throughout the industry today, including upstream in the supply chain: “we sell fabric to make garments” stresses Tony Delcampe, adding, with a hint of provocation, “not make-up”.

At La Cambre, narrative accompanies the designs, but the director makes a distinction from which the industry as a whole could learn: “the narrative comes afterwards. It emerges from the garment; it doesn’t precede it. It is born of the garment, not the designer. In the end, there is no text or designer to explain the intention behind it; it sits on a hanger in a store and it has to speak for itself.”

The Cambre Family or how the vision is spreading through the industry

It is this expertise — refocused over the past decade on design, technique and craftsmanship — and this cross-disciplinary training that explain why graduates go on to flourish in the different fashion houses: “several of them now work from prototypes, something they didn’t necessarily do before recruiting our graduates, or are creating departments to put craftsmanship back at the heart of the process,” adds Pierre Daras, head of the first-year Bachelor’s and Master’s programs.

“It's gratifying to see them helping to revive this way of designing and thinking through the garment. I like to say that we have two pillars: savoir-faire, which we’ve just talked about, and savoir-être. For us, this is not simply about intelligence, but about how knowledge and skills are passed on within teams. We can sum it up with an image: the Cambre Family, a sense of family that also permeates the creative process.”
©La Cambre

While the industry has elevated all these creative directors to the status of stars, even demi-gods, at the 40th anniversary of the fashion department, they were simply old classmates getting together. What unites them is that they share this common foundation. Moreover, they show much more solidarity than their elders. They all share a signature that sets them apart. People talk about them for their clothes, not for their runway sets.

Discover other articles in the Visions series.

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