Dysphoria / Rombaut SS25

Unveiled during ROMBAUT’s 10-year anniversary show at the haunting Paris Institut du Monde Arabe last June, the SS25 footwear collection and campaign, DYSPHORIA, presents a visionary take on conscious fashion. These reimagined, futuristic pieces resist the fashion industry’s endless cycle of waste and mass consumption. More than that, they evoke a raw emotional introspection — a rupture between routine and fantasy that exposes what is truly fractured: the human psyche itself.

In a world obsessed with surfaces and filtered projections, ROMBAUT doesn’t just break character — it dissolves the entire illusion, only to be reborn from its ruins. The SS25 campaign, DYSPHORIA, doesn’t simply showcase structural, futuristic silhouettes. It reveals what lies beneath: a disoriented sense of self, and a raw, almost desperate longing to escape the roles we’re forced to play in this simulation called reality.

Since its inception in 2013, ROMBAUT has merged radical design with humanistic values — championing conscious craftsmanship and 100% vegan materials. But beyond its material choices lies a deeper mission: to create objects that resonate on a psychological level. Loved by those who walk the fringes — artists, rebels, celebrities, and wanderers — the brand offers not just accessories, but an ecosystem of ideas. An act of resistance. A vision for a planet worth saving.

At the heart of it all is Mats Rombaut — the Belgian-born, Paris-based founder and multi-disciplinary alchemist. His creations are steeped in a strange tenderness, drawn from nature, science, architecture, and music. ROMBAUT’s work doesn’t scream — it pulses. It invites you into a confrontation: with yourself, your values, your veiled desires. The iconic heel, reimagined and stripped of artifice, becomes an artifact — not of vanity, but of vulnerability. Of rage. Of release.

This season, the heel returns through the lens of longtime collaborator and sonic insurgent Arca, taking three visceral forms: Office, Bandage, and Thigh High. Each silhouette carries its own tension — austere yet erotic, armored yet exposed — like a second skin built for walking through fire. The campaign also unveils two new accessories that deepen ROMBAUT’s ongoing dialogue between the body and its boundaries: The Shadow Bag, a brutalist soft-armor that folds, melts, and adapts & the YY Bag, a modular ode to Taoist dualities — wearable balance, designed for paradox.

“In a world that demands constant productivity, hedonism becomes a form of protest.”

The beating heart of DYSPHORIA is not escape — it’s reckoning. An emotionally charged, surreal meditation on the fracture between survival and fantasy. These heels, this campaign, this brand — they don’t offer an exit from reality. They offer a way out of inner instability, a language for the in-between, where identity slips and reforms.

Lensed by Marc Souvenir, the visuals capture Lidija Judickaite as a post-collapse archetype: eyes blurred, limbs elongated, breath caught somewhere between despair and rebirth. She’s not performing — she’s shedding. Styled by Antonella and Aldana Simes, the campaign doesn’t construct a persona. It dismantles the mask. This is not costume. It’s exposure.

ROMBAUT’s known commitment to sustainable production isn’t an aesthetic — it’s a political and existential stance. This campaign threads its message into the real — our environment, our collapsing systems, our need for fashion that gives back more than it takes. It’s a vision where radical design exists in alliance with the planet, not in opposition.

As fashion continues to be a driver of waste, exploitation, and environmental harm, ROMBAUT stands as a rupture — a way forward. A brand that doesn’t just look the part, but embodies a better world. Because right now, fantasy is not a luxury — it’s a necessity. And the future we wear can still be rewritten — together.

“Break character. Reclaim yourself.”

These aren’t just heels. They’re a fracture line in the collapse, a quiet scream, a call to release. ROMBAUT crafts more than silhouettes. It builds symbols. Each piece holds a pulse, a narrative, a reason to exist in a world drowning in noise. We don’t need more things. We need meaning. And ROMBAUT delivers it — one step at a time. Let go. Sink in. Explore the SS25 collection here.

Credits:

Photography: Marc Souvenir / @souvvennir
Makeup: Catalina Sartor / @catalinasartor_
Styling: Antonella Simes, Aldana Simes / @antosimes, @aldysimes
Direction: Berre Brans, Victor Vidal / @berrebrans, @victorvidalmar
Talent: Lidija Judickaite / @cont.ethics
Writer: Leslie Guerra Ayala / @leslieguerraa
Editor: Anca Macavei / @ancamacavei

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