Reims Students Design Roman Banquet-Inspired Fashion for Italy Trip
- Students at the lycée professionnel Europe in Reims are preparing for a trip to Italy as part of a unique educational challenge.
- The students are tasked with creating a garment that embodies this theme.
- The project is well underway, with students working diligently to meet the upcoming deadline.
Reims Lycée Students Prepare for Italian Fashion Challenge
Students at the lycée professionnel Europe in Reims are preparing for a trip to Italy as part of a unique educational challenge. This year, the Villa Médicis in Rome is challenging twelve classes from the Grand Est region to reinterpret the dress codes of Roman banquets through the lens of modern fashion, according to reporting from Radio France.
The students are tasked with creating a garment that embodies this theme. The first-year bac pro “Métiers de la mode” class at the Reims lycée is currently crafting a custom-made dress inspired by both antiquity and the Renaissance, utilizing a variety of unconventional materials.
The project is well underway, with students working diligently to meet the upcoming deadline. Flavie is focused on creating accessories, specifically using gold paint, while Jade is cutting pieces of cork, explaining they are creating “grape bunches” to represent the Champagne region. The students are intentionally incorporating diverse materials, including chicken bones, to evoke the opulence of a Roman banquet.
Nora, a 16-year-old student in the bac pro program, is working on the finishing touches of gloves made from elastic material, presenting a challenge for the school’s sewing machines. She described the process as “delicate, but also boosting.”
The students are designing their garment to be a surprise, with plans to present it as part of a “crude” table setting reminiscent of a banquet’s aftermath. The dress will then be revealed, emerging from the table to showcase their creation. The project is supervised by three teachers.
The trip to Italy, scheduled for May 3-8, will be a first-time experience for approximately three-quarters of the students involved. While the students are working towards a final product, the Villa Médicis has decided not to rank the submissions this year, removing any competitive element from the project.
Arnaud Robinet is the current mayor of Reims, serving a term from 2020 to 2026.
Reims, located 129 km (80 miles) northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, is the most populous city in the Marne department and the 12th most populous city in France, with a population of 177,674 as of 2023.