Class of 2021: Meet Justine Janot, the CSM grad creating a hybrid femininity with her IRL and URL collection
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Diverging from a science degree, Justine Janot switched to fashion to be able to “create characters and environments from a more 3D point of view.” Her graduate collection is the antithesis of that, combining traditional making practices with digital design in a collection of hybrid feminine silhouettes set against the backdrop of a hostile, dystopia.
Filter by EMILY JANE SCOTT x CHECK-OUT
NAME JUSTINE JANOT
AGE 22
LOCATION Paris, France
COURSE BA Fashion Design with Marketing
UNIVERSITY Central Saint Martins
STAR SIGN Leo
DESCRIBE YOUR DEGREE IN THREE WORDS Exhausting, Fulfilling, Challenging.
Jeffrey Thomson: Hey Justine - tell us about your final collection. What was the inspiration behind it?
Justine Janot: Hi Jeffrey, my collection portrays a dystopian, apocalyptic world where the human race had to develop physical and behavioural changes to adapt and survive to a shifting, hostile environment. The collection explores how life thrives from chaos and reflects on the body and its evolving properties, like fertility or the skeleton itself by redefining them. These metamorphoses create strong feminine silhouettes and enable my characters to defend themselves, building armour-like garments.
To create my shapes and redefine the human skeleton I referenced existing bone structures from different species that existed in the prehistoric era until now, therefore creating a hybrid femininity, mixed with science-fiction references. I was very inspired by the theory of The Monstrous Feminine established by Barbara Creed and developed later on by Jane Usscher, who explored how fears of society are projected on the fertile female body.
JT: How did you find CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS? What was the experience like - was it what you expected or completely different?
JJ: It was exactly as I expected it - crazy, open-minded, fun, intense and demanding. I really loved it and spent so much time there with everyone that I consider it to be my home. You just spend your life with the people you meet there, and sometimes we would stay so late in the evenings that we would just say goodnight instead of goodbye, like we were all in this massive flat share. I really missed that this year, it was really hard to do mostly everything at home but we were lucky enough to have a bit of that at the end.
JT: Did you always know you wanted to study here? What was your journey to CSM like?
JJ: Absolutely not! I was supposed to do a scientific pathway and then decided I would do character and set design for animation and video games, and I finally changed my mind in the last year before my Baccalauréat (A levels). I don’t know why I changed suddenly but someone mentioned fashion design to me and before that I had no idea it could actually be an option. I wasn’t particularly interested in fashion as a child and being a designer never crossed my mind but I realised it was a really good way for me to create characters and environments from a more 3D point of view. I work better around the space and the body than on a sheet of paper.
JT: When looking back on your first project and now to your final collection, what springs to mind?
JJ: I was so young!! I have a bit of nostalgia because I miss having these little projects that we do just for fun, now everything has implications and so much at stake, it’s hard to distantiate from more mature and researched projects, but that’s something I’m working on!
JT: What’s the biggest misconception about studying fashion?
JJ: That everyone is superficial, fake and hypercompetitive. I’ve met amazing creative people: designers, artists, performers, illustrators, sculptors, photographers, and especially friends! Of course there are a few competitive people - like in any other industry, but personally I didn’t find it overwhelming at all and just had the best experience within my group of friends where we all helped each other, constantly asking for advice and opinions, and I wouldn’t be here without them.
JT: If you could go back, would you have done anything different?
JJ: No, even if I don’t end up doing exactly what I studied for, this experience brought me so much.
JT: What advice would you give to those thinking about studying fashion? Is a formal fashion education for everyone?
JJ: First of all I wouldn’t say that a CSM fashion education is formal haha…if anything it’s the opposite. My advice would be, if you’re attracted to it and feel like that’s the way to express yourself then just do it! It’s definitely not for everyone and you do have to get used to stressful and intense situations but I always find it very rewarding, at least within the education system.
JT: What’s your biggest fashion faux pas?
JJ: In first year I used to have this pair of horrendous white Fila’s - and I absolutely loved them.
JT: The best thing about studying in London?
JJ: The people and the open-mindedness.
JT: And the worst?
JJ: It has a very fast pace and can be really crowded and intense, but that never bothered me that much.
JT: When you’re rushing towards a deadline, what keeps you going?
JJ: My friends, the celebration and the thought of getting back all the hours of sleep after, and the idea that after the deadline the design I had in my head will actually exist.
JT: How are you celebrating post-graduation life?
JJ: I’m just getting a lot of rest, taking more time for myself, and spending more quality time with the people I didn’t have time to see when I was working so much.
JT: What’s next for Justine?
JJ: Haha, not sure really. I would love to have a freelance design position somewhere, ideally travel to Italy or New York, have a change of scenery and work on fun and beautiful collaborative projects with other creatives.
JT: And lastly, what does fashion mean to you?
JJ: It’s the best way I found to express myself creatively and to be more confident by designing for confident women, but I am attracted to lots of other things that I want to try out and I am curious to see how all of it is going to intertwine.
See more from Check-Out’s Class of 2021 here.