Profile: Genevieve LaValle – Real Leather Design Competitions

Genevieve LaValle

London College of Fashion

Hi, I’m Genevieve LaValle, a costume designer and recent graduate from London College of Fashion’s Costume for Performance course. A lot of my work exists between fashion and costume. I’m inspired by performance, literature, architecture, and historical silhouettes. I’m always asking how a piece feels on the body and what it communicates without explanation. I’m especially drawn to leather because of its physical and emotional weight. It holds shape, memory, and history. It’s a material that forces you to slow down and be international. I love working with leather because it demands precision and care, which I think makes it one of the most powerful materials for storytelling. Most of my design work is research-led, often taking inspiration from texts or time periods that hold emotional weight. My competition piece is a continuation of a larger project on Dante’s Divine Comedy, focusing on Francesca da Rimini from Inferno. I wanted to explore what it means to be bound by love, guilt, and memory, showing how those emotions can be expressed through form, structure, and texture. This competition gave me the space to bring together everything I’ve learned: traditional handcraft, character-driven design, sustainability, and bold silhouettes rooted in history but reimagined for today. Whether I’m constructing a garment for costume or fashion, my aim is always the same: to create work that tells a story beyond a performance or runway.

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Elegy for Francesca

Category: Apparel

Competitions: International

This piece was inspired by Inferno Canto V, specifically Francesca da Rimini. I explored Dante’s Divine Comedy in my final major project and wanted to use the Real Leather. Stay Different. competition as an opportunity to revisit his world from a new perspective. Francesca is punished for love and trapped in the endless storm in the second circle of Hell, but when she speaks to Dante, it is with sorrow, grace, and emotional weight. I wanted to translate the tension between beauty, grief, and power into a wearable garment. Visually, I drew inspiration from the Gothic architecture of Dante’s time. Pointed arches, cathedrals, and stained glass windows were designed to evoke reverence and awe. These forms carry both the beauty of divine love and the heaviness of judgment, which are core themes in the Divine Comedy. I brought that into the construction through traditional leatherwork techniques and crochet, which cannot be replicated by machines. They ground the garment in craft and humanity, while still offering potential for adaptation in commercial production through techniques like stitched or braided leather trim and knitting. The silhouette nods to medieval dress but reimagines it through a modern lens. Exaggerated sleeves, a sculpted bodice, and structured trousers transform the idea of a gown into a jumpsuit. Though far from historically accurate, this design responds to my background in costume design and my desire to reframe Francesca not as a passive figure caught in a storm, but as someone still and sovereign being. This garment lets her stand on her own, sharp, strong, and unapologetically present.