“It’s not about com­pe­ti­tion, it’s about human­i­ty and passion.”

To Sarah De Saint Hubert, fash­ion has always revolved around sto­ries and souls. She defines gar­ments as a medi­um, not as a pur­pose. Sarah De Saint Hubert found­ed her label in 2018 in Brus­sels. She joined Unit­ed Fash­ion dur­ing the Lis­boa Fash­ion Week in March 2020. As a Unit­ed fash­ion design­er, she shares her expe­ri­ences and out­comes from her par­tic­i­pa­tion to the UF program.

When and why did you start your own label?

The first col­lec­tion was offi­cial­ly launched at STI­JL Brus­sels in March 2019. After 15 years work­ing for sev­er­al fash­ion design­ers and brands, the time felt right to try it on my own and share my vision and aesthetics.

What is the DNA of your label?

• An epony­mous brand that val­ues the human­i­ty, the craft and the cre­ative process .
• A black and white uni­verse that estab­lished the genet­ics of the brand. 
• Noble fab­rics, noble hands and noble eyes. 
• An orig­i­nal mix of a rock atti­tude and spir­it in a pure, mut­ed space. 
• Fenim­i­ty as much as masculinity. 
• The mag­ic entan­gle­ments of fash­ion and music. 
• Love as the essence of life, the ulti­mate exis­ten­tial value.

Where do you get your inspi­ra­tion from?

The idea of trans­mis­sion is very impor­tant in my cre­ative process. I love to look back at old fam­i­ly pho­to albums and devel­op my own con­tem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tion of those clas­sic, some­times his­tor­i­cal ele­ments. My inspi­ra­tion is almost emo­tion­al, very intu­itive, rather than con­cep­tu­al.
A fab­ric could inspire me, a song could inspire me, there is no rule, I just lis­ten to what moves me.

What do you con­sid­er the biggest chal­lenge the fash­ion indus­try is fac­ing today?

As an inde­pen­dant fash­ion design­er, the biggest chal­lenge today is to come up with a sus­tain­able alter­na­tive busi­ness mod­el. One that is unique and con­sis­tant with our own val­ues and DNA.
The chal­lenge is also to get rid of the sense­less­ness by being dar­ing and cre­ative at all lev­els.
Slow­ing down and shift towards a mind­full cre­ative process and craft­man­ship, giv­ing back their well deserved value.

How are you involved with Unit­ed Fashion?

In March 2020, I par­tic­i­pat­ed to MODA LIS­BOA, a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to show my project and meet great people!

How did you expe­ri­ence your participation?

It was def­i­nite­ly a great expe­ri­ence, but slight­ly dis­rupt­ed by the cri­sis the world was fac­ing at that time. What I appre­ci­at­ed the most was to share idea’s and tips with oth­er design­ers and fash­ion players.

What result­ed from your par­tic­i­pa­tion to Unit­ed Fashion?

What result­ed from my par­tic­i­pa­tion is a feel­ing of togeth­er­ness. We all, as inde­pen­dant design­ers, are strug­gling to sur­vive and raise our voic­es and visions. It’s not about com­pe­ti­tion, it’s about human­i­ty and passion.

What’s next? What are you cur­rent­ly work­ing on?

It’s hard to sum-up as I am all alone to man­age every­thing with­in my com­pa­ny…
Cur­rent­ly, I am fol­low­ing-up my Fall Winter’20 pro­duc­tion, devel­op­ing sev­er­al new pieces for the new Spring-Sum­mer col­lec­tion, sell­ing and pro­mot­ing the cur­rent Spring Summer’20 col­lec­tion ​‘New Begin­nings’, and much more.

But what excites me the most cur­rent­ly is to work on the new shape I wish to give to my project. Think­ing and explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties, posi­tion myself strong­ly and in full accor­dance with my val­ues. Keep­ing the flame and pas­sion alive, more than ever! 

Sarah De Saint Hubert recent­ly launched her ​‘New begin­nings col­lec­tion’. Take a look here:

More infor­ma­tion about the New Begin­nings col­lec­tion can be found in the doc­u­ment below: