Top image: Afterhomework SS18

Having started life as a line of tshirts, Afterhomework has swiftly become one of the hottest new names on the French fashion landscape. Formed by 18-year-old designer Pierre Kaczmarek and his girlfriend, stylist Elena Mottola, the duo remix traditional French workwear with that new youthful energy currently surging through the Parisian streets.

Now comes the brand’s debut campaign showcasing its SS18 collection – shown below with exclusive imagery. Taking the campaign to the streets, the stills venture to street markets, linger on a busy street corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and pass by metro Censier Daubenton, far from the usual Parisian fashion locations.

The concept stems from Afterhomework’s desire to confront the establishment, something that has been in the label’s DNA since conception – this mentality comes naturally when you launch a brand at the age of fifteen. Bringing together models and friends of the brand, the campaign was shot from the windows of surrounding buildings. In tight zooms and dramatically high angles, each image displays the SS18 collection as part of busy street tableaux – like a fashion-take on Google Street View.

Afterhomework’s appetite for realness becomes apparent not only through the execution of the campaign but also through the actual garments. The designs deconstruct old codes and offer unusual cuts and combinations, illustrated by the use of blue canvas fabric from the French car manufacturer Renault or shiny black sacking used by the farmers to capture the sun.

As the head of the brand, Pierre Kaczmarek, outlined it in an interview for HERO 17, the brand has a “paradoxical relationship with streetwear. It doesn’t have a basis of hoodies, tracksuits, and sneakers. But at the same time, it is totally influenced by the streets, daily life, encounters, honest Parisian life rather than classical luxury.” To the creative duo, it is all about “bringing together the avant-garde and urban culture, but also observing younger generations, people far from fashion, old social symbols that have lost their symbolic role, like workwear or ties.”

Follow Afterhomework here.