Finalists – Prix Picto de la Mode 2025 : Clément Jerkew

Sài Gòn Đẹp Lắm is a photographic series exploring the underground upcycling scene in Saigon, blending fashion and documentary. Clément Jurkew, captivated by the creativity of the new generation, documents how this youth is reinventing garment production in response to fast fashion by repurposing local fabrics. The street, with its spontaneity and unpredictability, becomes the backdrop for this project where art and social engagement converge. Trained at the Gobelins School, he combines a rigorous technical approach with a documentary perspective, exploring subjects as diverse as fashion, still life, and human nature. His work is an encounter between reality and visual poetry.

Born in 2000 in the northern suburbs of Paris, Clément Jurkew grew up between the city, the countryside, and the sea. From an early age, he developed a particular sensitivity to life and nature, nurturing an insatiable curiosity about how individuals interact with their environment. This fascination with humans and their surroundings naturally led him to adopt an almost anthropological approach to image-making. After a few years of studying engineering, he redirected his path to photography and graduated from the Gobelins School of the Image. His scientific background provides him with a rigorous technical approach to imagery, which he applies to his visual aesthetic. Today, he specializes primarily in fashion photography and still life, regularly collaborating with international brands wishing to establish themselves in Paris. Despite this focus, his attraction to documentary work remains strong. This blend of influences gives his work a grounded, real-world dimension, elevated by a precise and almost surreal mastery of light.

“Sài Gòn Đẹp Lắm” (“Saigon is beautiful”) resonates with the beauty of a cycle. It is the allegory of a fertile soil, on multiple scales. Having fallen deeply in love with Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) three years ago, Clément Jurkew decided to return for a longer stay, alone, to pursue a project that is close to his heart. Fascinated by the creative ambitions of the new generation, he wanted to build a work around them.

His project is a photographic study blending fashion and documentary, exploring the underground upcycling scene in Saigon. In a country massively impacted by the production of fast fashion, he wanted to understand how the youth are taking on this issue to create in a different way: by repurposing fabric scraps or working with local and traditional textiles.

His hope was to collaborate with these “soft revolutionaries” – creatives aware of the socio-environmental challenges of their time, who use their art to serve a more grounded mode of production, in opposition to the monopolies of the garment industry. He had the chance to meet incredible talents, all part of this same movement, where engagement and creativity go hand in hand.

But he also wanted to maintain a traveler’s perspective. It was essential for him not to distance himself from his status as an outsider and to allow the curiosity of a somewhat voyeuristic wanderer, fascinated by a culture that is not his own, to come through. He chose to place his subjects in the street, this endless flow of inspiration and randomness – but also in everything he has understood about South Vietnam so far.

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