Most promising Graduate
of the Year 2025
— Bert Deconinck
Bert Deconick is a multidisciplinary fashion designer with a background in fashion design, fashion technology and interior and furniture design. His work emphasizes material exploration, narrative and craftsmanship. He is currently completing a Fashion Design degree at SASK Sint-Niklaas, following earlier studies at HoGent and KASK. His experience in luxury knitwear production and styling has refined his attention to detail, finish and composition. Influenced by classical menswear and contemporary cultural references, he explores garments as vessels of structure, emotion and identity. Now working as a freelancer, he designs and researches clothing as a medium for storytelling and cultural reflection.
WINNER
— Chlöe Reners
Chloë Reners recently graduated with a master’s degree from the Fashion Department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. For her final collection, dot dot dot, she explored themes of surrealism and the representation of women in art, drawing inspiration from artists such as painter George Underwood. Her work focuses on blending conceptual ideas with wearable design, aiming to tell stories through form, texture, and detail. She is currently based in Paris, working as an intern for Dior in the womenswear show team. Throughout her work and collaborations, including projects with brands such as KOMONO, she strives to combine creativity, technical skill, and innovation, consistently challenging herself to push the boundaries of fashion design.
— Killian Goderis
Kilian Goderis graduated with high distinction in 2025 with a Master’s degree in Fashion at KASK, Ghent. His graduation collection, Point of No Return, builds on the technical approach and methodology that also defined his earlier bachelor collections (2020-2023), Adjustable Boundaries and Interface. While his previous work focused primarily on the wearer within a societal context, this latest collection also explores the material properties themselves, as well as the visible traces of his creative process. Prior to his fashion studies, Kilian earned a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts (2017–2020), specializing in advertising. His technical and architectural approach to fashion stems from his earlier education in architectural arts at the Sint-Lucas Secondary School of Arts in Ghent (2013–2017).
— Lionel Gallet
Lionel Gallet was born in Ath, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. He completed his secondary education in general sciences and languages, cultivating a longstanding interest in fashion alongside his studies. His passion for Belgian fashion developed during visits to the Dansaert district in Brussels, particularly through the boutique Stijl. This exposure motivated him to pursue fashion design at a higher level. At 18, he was admitted to La Cambre following the entrance exam and went on to complete five years of study. He recently graduated with a master’s degree in fashion design.
— Elise Maréchal
Elise Marechal first earned a bachelor’s degree in communication before turning to fashion to pursue her true passion. This initial training taught her to view clothing as a medium for storytelling, shaping an approach that is both sentimental and experimental. She seeks to infuse garments with memories and emotions while exploring their structural potential. Her graduation collection, ‘Le verrou de la porte résonne pareil depuis toujours’, draws inspiration from the intimate atmosphere of her grandmother’s house, where every object, texture and pattern reflects the passage of time. Influenced by everyday objects and the poetry of frozen moments, her work explores how heritage and place shape identity. It is both a meditation on what time erases and a reflection on memory as it evolves while retaining its essence.
— Kristin Paquot
Kristin Paquot explored words before clothing. Holding a master’s degree in Germanic languages and literatures from the University of Liège, she spent five years teaching before feeling a profound need to reconnect with her creativity. She then began studying fashion design at Château Massart, where she developed an approach to clothing as a space for both narrative and rebellion. Her graduate collection, ‘What do you do with a REVOLUTION ?’, challenges gender norms and subcultures through tense silhouettes frozen in the midst of riots, interwoven with references to both grunge and flapper style.
— Silvain Drabbe
Trained as a couturier and stylist, Sylvain Drabbe is a recent graduate of HEFF. His creations are crafted with great care and meticulous attention to detail, always maintaining a coherent vision within a contemporary spirit. During his studies in Fashion Design, Sylvain Drabbe drew inspiration from pop culture and historical references, with the aim of creating silhouettes that stand strong individually while remaining coherent as a collection. His collection Ryuka is an aesthetic interpretation of eight films with a striking visual identity. From The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) to Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010), each of these films is steeped in a mysterious atmosphere and uses an iconic visual language that transformed Sylvain’s perception of cinema. The collection translates this cinematic universe into a series of layered, alienating silhouettes.