CYCLE is a collaborative fashion film directed by Ramy Moharam Fouad with choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on the now-celebrated SS22 Collection#12 CYCLE from Antwerp-based designer Jan – Jan Van Essche.
As we, the world and all creation are experiencing a collective transition, a new future awaits us all. Space & time become utter necessities for the acceptance of a new state of being, while our wounds slowly heal. In all humbleness, the CYCLE collection offers an alternative to help us through the now. A bright red, encouraging life force and passion for creation… an ode to love. Smoothly textured fabrics with soft caresses, sensible colors chosen to highlight the new cycle we are entering. The elements are in constant rotation.
Since its 2022 debut, Collection#12 CYCLE has grown in critical resonance as slowness and cyclical design philosophy continue to define the most thoughtful conversations in fashion through 2026.
The Creative Vision Behind Jan-Jan Van Essche Collection#12 CYCLE
Jan-Jan Van Essche has built a singular reputation in contemporary fashion by refusing to participate in the industry’s relentless acceleration. His Antwerp atelier operates on principles of slowness, intentionality, and deep material respect, and Collection#12 CYCLE represents perhaps the clearest articulation of that philosophy to date. The collection takes its name and central metaphor from the natural world, where cycles of growth, rest, decay, and renewal are not disruptions but necessities.
For CYCLE, Van Essche worked with a palette anchored by a commanding red, a color chosen not for trend alignment but for its primal associations with vitality, courage, and the will to continue. Supporting tones were selected with equal deliberateness, favoring earth-grounded hues that suggest soil, bark, and stone rather than the synthetic brightness common to seasonal trend cycles.
The silhouettes, as is consistent across Van Essche’s body of work, are generous and unrestrictive. Garments are designed to move with the body rather than to discipline it, reflecting a broader philosophy that clothing should serve the wearer’s sense of ease and identity rather than impose an external ideal. This approach has made his work particularly resonant with an audience that values authenticity over spectacle.
Collaboration as Creative Language: Ramy Moharam Fouad and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
The fashion film produced for Collection#12 CYCLE elevates the work beyond a conventional lookbook presentation. Directed by filmmaker Ramy Moharam Fouad and choreographed by the internationally acclaimed Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, the film treats the garments as participants in a living, breathing conversation about transformation rather than as static objects to be catalogued.
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is among the most respected choreographers working today, known for his cross-cultural movement language that draws on traditions from Flamenco and contemporary dance to South Asian classical forms. His involvement signals the seriousness with which Van Essche approaches the question of how clothing exists in motion and in time, not simply on a hanger or a runway.
Ramy Moharam Fouad’s direction brings a meditative visual quality to the film, allowing the fabrics to register their true texture and weight through movement. The result is a document that functions simultaneously as art film, fashion archive, and philosophical statement. Within the context of the broader Jan-Jan Van Essche collection#12 cycle project, the film serves as both introduction and interpretation, inviting the viewer to experience the garments as they are intended: as companions for the present moment, whatever that moment contains.
This model of deep creative collaboration across disciplines has become a distinguishing characteristic of Van Essche’s practice and continues to influence how independent designers communicate their work to global audiences.
Why Collection#12 CYCLE Remains Relevant in Contemporary Fashion Discourse
Since its SS22 debut, the Jan-Jan Van Essche Collection#12 CYCLE has accumulated critical significance that extends well beyond its original season. As fashion’s most thoughtful observers have grown increasingly skeptical of disposability, volume, and trend-driven production, Van Essche’s cyclical philosophy has moved from the margins of discourse to its center.
The collection anticipated several directions that now define the most serious conversations in fashion through 2025 and 2026, including the resurgence of craft-forward textile practices, the prioritization of emotional durability in garment design, and the growing audience for work that positions clothing within philosophical and ecological frameworks rather than purely commercial ones.
Van Essche’s refusal to expand production volume or dilute his aesthetic for broader market access has also become a reference point for emerging designers navigating the tension between creative integrity and commercial viability. His practice demonstrates that a deeply considered, deliberately slow approach can generate sustained cultural relevance precisely because it is not designed for immediate consumption.
For readers invested in fashion as a cultural practice rather than a purchasing category, the CYCLE collection offers a productive model. It asks its audience to consider what it means to enter a new phase with intention, to dress not for external validation but for internal alignment, and to understand that the most enduring creative work often moves at the pace of nature rather than the pace of industry.
