Aurélie Defez

Aurélie Defez is an artist and designer whose practice sits at the intersection of graphic design and fashion. Through her work, she critically examines the role of design in shaping our relationship with clothing and highlights the social, cultural and economic inequalities embedded within the fashion system.

Drawing from meme culture, Aurélie uses humor, bold visuals and critical narratives to challenge the industry's appropriation of working-class aesthetics. Her work questions how certain garments and symbols, often dismissed or stigmatized when worn in their original context, gain legitimacy and desirability once rebranded by high fashion.

By reworking second-hand clothing through digital embroidery, she creates wearable statements that disrupt established hierarchies of taste and representation. Her process transforms everyday garments into critical artifacts, offering counter-narratives to the commodification of popular aesthetics.

In an industry driven by exclusivity, profit and rapid trend cycles, she seeks to reclaim fashion as a space for critique. Her approach blends satire, social commentary and craft, revealing the contradictions within fashion and the mechanisms of distinction that structure our perception of style and value.