Valentin Lessner

Temple Magazine

Can you tell us about your background?

Valentin Lessner

I come from Germany, from a really small town in Bavaria, where I was born and raised. With not so much of a life around here, it’s mainly nature, cows and farming... which is beautiful and idyllic, but at a certain age I started to become interested in other things, and almost developed a toxic relationship with my roots and growing up here. When I was younger, it was mostly music that I was interested in for a way of expression; I used to play drums, piano, percussion and was producing & playing electronic music, it was mainly about making sound with everything back then.

Besides music I had a fascination to flea markets from a really young age on, traveling one hour each Saturday in the morning to be the first one there... I was buying mainly garments or sometimes objects and artifacts that I felt like they had a certain spirit I was attracted by, no matter of the era or context they came from. My grandparents also had a tailoring atelier for bespoke garments in Bavaria, but it’s not the romantic story of me growing up under the table and watching them cut & sew. My grandfather couldn't teach me anything anymore because he was too old, it was more of having an autodidact approach to it when I got interested in tailoring and their heritage in general.

In my teenage years, it was turning more and more into the direction that I started making my own clothes, mostly with raw material from the flea market or leftovers from my grandparents. I was watching YouTube videos to learn how to assemble clothes and create patterns... the first things I designed were honestly really bad. Patterns and fabric choices were horrible, but it just started from there.

Luckily this changed with going to university and studying fashion and communication design, because I wanted to strengthen my multidisciplinary approach to fashion and visual expression. It was always a mix for me of several media to express, I couldn't really separate things. Fashion to me is like a merging point of many different streams I am interested in, I think that’s why I am so fascinated by it.

Temple Magazine

Your collection is made on recycled garment only?

Valentin Lessner

I would say it's about 80% of leftover and deadstock raw materials that I collected over the years from flea markets, eBay and old tailoring ateliers because here in Germany tailoring was a big thing before they had to close in the 70s and on, due to the mass production and the globalization in general.... So it was easy for me to dig into these ateliers to find superior fabrics that were just simply leftovers, as I always had this interest in 'forgotten treasures' that other people might not need anymore. The only disadvantage has been that I was quite limited to certain shapes sometimes because of simply the given fabric amount that I had found, so I had to calculate with patterns a lot to reach the most and best possible.

With being selected for the Festival this year, I was changing some shapes once again that I was not fully satisfied yet because of the fabric amount limit I had while creating. I was therefore researching a lot on Premiere Vision and online to challenge myself in terms of a more industrial but yet responsible way of sourcing – looking for companies that share common values and that I felt like it made sense to work together with.

Because talking about sustainability, if we have to be really true to ourselves, the most sustainable thing for me is to not produce anything at all as there is already existing enough. But as we’re all consumers, for me it is always the challenge to find new ways of designing and producing meaningful products in a responsible way – thinking about function, emotion and the durability. We’re making a garment, but what happens with it after like five years?

Temple Magazine

But you can’t be a perfect designer, it's impossible anyways.

Valentin Lessner

Yes, but I think it’s our responsibility to start with small steps into the right direction. For example when you're creating new collections, then just focus a bit on the calculation process, and also maybe more on the garment itself rather than the marketing part only. I feel like this could be the first step already, because nowadays it ironically sometimes seems that shows are only a huge entertainment business and the garments themselves loose their relevance as we are flooded with too much information and visual input all the time.

Of course I am in an easy position to criticize as I am not producing for the market yet, but I still have this vision of focusing on less, almost a bit like old bespoke ateliers that have been producing on demand only and the focus was a lot about shape, the individual itself and craftsmanship.

Temple Magazine

When we met at the fashion festival of the villa Noailles, we were able to see your collection up close, each piece had indeed a lot of detail. For example a chain fly that surrounds the waist inside a pair of pants and labels referring to your grandfather's tailor atelier. What is your way of set up a collection? What is your way of working?

Valentin Lessner

When I start collections, it's based on an emotion or a feeling that I evaluate as somehow contemporary relevant and that I want to create for the viewer in the end. I'm not that structured afterwards, I am then creating with inspiration that comes nearly from everywhere, but sharing the same spirit, emotion and energy.

For the last collection, I was digging into mostly my Bavarian roots, having a personal conversation about where I come from and what „home“ means to me in our time where everything is so faced paced and we can be everywhere all at once with globalization and the internet.
Also with the COVID situation, I was really questioning myself: What do people define as home? When you think about home, what does this to you ?

So I started from that point, and was then extending it afterwards – for example researching about folklore, tradition, modern pioneers from my area and my personal bavarian idols that I feel connected to. I'm just creating this whole sphere and trying to make it a bit more complex in terms of bringing something new to the table.

This also reflects my personal fascination with detailing and complex solutions of functional features, it happens by really digging deep into the garment and questioning everything. But I also like just easy ideas that are more like hidden secrets to be spread: I like metal music and also in general, a bit of hardcore stuff. So that’s why there are a lot of metal trims, delivering a bit of aggression – it’s important for me to have more a personal emotional connection to the whole garment rather than just creating something because it's a fashionable item.

Temple Magazine

Your images in your collections are quite strong, what shapes your aesthetic? Do you make the image direction yourself?

Valentin Lessner

It was us as a team that shaped the images in the end – I was directing it, but it all happened as a result of the team working together. We created everything as friends for this whole project together, mostly individuals who also come from the same area as me. It was based on our emotions and the idea that I had in the beginning of the collection. About the model selection, it was same thing – also many friends that grew up with me here, we were basically just thinking about ways on how to represent our roots in a modern way. It was always this weird bond between something very classic and traditional and something new or fresh, a small twist.

And of course I had a very talented and committed team on my side, so a lot is owed to them. Thank you to each one at this point once again!

Temple Magazine

As a young designer, how do you imagine your evolution in the fashion industry? What are your goals to achieve?

Valentin Lessner

If I had to limit myself to one answer, my main goal is probably to create meaningful products in a responsible way, creating garments that in my eyes make sense in terms of like function, durability and wearability.

I don’t mind if this is going to be for my own brand or if it’s going to be under the name of someone else, doesn't really matter to me. I'm not trying to force things, I just try to evaluate when there is the right moment for a certain next step to do.

Temple Magazine

Now it's a question of good timing.

Valentin Lessner

As I said, I don’t like to force things. I'm not like someone who is really pushing things at all costs, because it's not going to work on a natural basis in the end. It's always about this for me, not only in fashion but in general. So I can agree, timing is the final question always for me.