RED LINE - KARL LUIS GEBHARDT


We walked into Luis’s living room in Antwerp, which he had transformed into a workspace with his roommate, filled with sewing machines, mannequins, rolls of fabric, and large pieces of leather. Everything is dyed red. For his final collection at the Fashion Department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Luis is creating eight looks, almost exclusively in red. Inspired by the act of dressing entirely in the color to support Palestine and by the Red Line protests he witnessed in Amsterdam, Luis explores through his designs borders, man-made limits and the act of fighting to acquire land.

“I’m inspired by hate or the misunderstanding of how things work. It’s more interesting to talk about what’s not working than what is. I’m not as interested in beautiful things as I am in not-so-beautiful things. It’s a personal way of coping.”


Luis finds inspiration in the things that aren’t working in our world, those that fracture rather than soothe, such as hate and war. In his design language, he chooses to deviate from canonical harmony in favour of a confrontational negotiation with the body, one that doesn’t necessarily accommodate human proportions. The garments he showed us impose themselves onto the body, pressing inward, almost imploding.

The lines traced by the garments onto the body are brute yet drawn and stitched to perfection. For instance, Luis creates folds on thick, long leather gloves by meticulously folding the wet leather and letting it dry perfectly in place. The illusion of a natural fold is created through mathematical methods. The contradicting nature of forcing organic shapes into place is a somewhat quiet staged rebellion against the natural.

The look that wears these gloves is called the “Butcher”. It consists of a black leather apron that touches the floor, with war medals moulded into the leather covering its chest. The red gloves that eat up the models’ entire arms are meant for some kind of dirty work, done by butchers, surgeons or soldiers. The folds in this collection are seen as mountains and rivers that run through the model.


Amongst the eight looks, one draws on the symbolism and form of the Pangaea Flag. The fabric cloaks the body of the model in layered shades of dyed reds. It’s a cloak of protection, conceived as a flag and worn as a jacket. It is dressed through the front and fastened at the back, keeping the details of an original flag, like the dimensions and the hoops that would attach it to a pole.

Luis also shared a jacket that carries the imprint of a human form on its shoulders. Created through a study of the best way for one to carry a wounded soldier, the figure’s legs extend into the sleeves of the garment, becoming the arms of the wearer. A collapse of two bodies into one. Streaks of red dye bleed across the leather, forming subtle currents that run through the jacket, acting as veins or rivers.

“The way I make clothes for myself resonates with the border as a natural line. When it comes to the human body, there are no lines. That’s why it’s so hard to draw a human. But choosing where the line could be is super interesting.”


A pair of drop-crotch trousers further articulates Luis’s preoccupation with division. Panels of fabric are held together by perpendicular threads, connections that bind while simultaneously keeping distance, allowing glimpses of skin to surface between them. The stitches trace rigid, almost cartographic seams, inspired by the unnatural, imposed borders that segment the United States. The garment becomes a terrain, inscribing onto the body.

Yet beneath this severity lies a different order. The interior of Luis’ garments reveals an almost obsessive precision, a quiet counterpoint to the aggression of their outer shell. Linings appear as well-drawn maps, which, when turned inside out, expose an alternate landscape.

“The US is the perfect example of imaginary lines. There is nothing natural about its borders.”


Working with and around war and resistance symbols, like flags and gas masks, Luis explores how his creative and personal views coexist with politics. Departing from the colour red not only as a mere aesthetic, but as a collective gesture, active when bodies gather and dress in unison. Among the accessories featured in the collection is a bag that takes the form of a cross, resembling the symbols found at forest borders, small markers embedded in stone, quietly signalling division and ownership. A language of territory translated into form. This sums up all of the thoughts that have surfaced through these garments.