At a long table, an emerging designer leans over a sketchbook, tracing the outline of a silhouette with delicate pressure. Around her, swatches of linen, organza, and lace are clipped to the wall, each carefully selected with immense care. She reflects for a moment, studies her sketch again, then finally reaches for the fabric.

Clotilde, a senior fashion design student working on her thesis collection, isn’t just making clothes for the runway. Her work symbolizes an alarming and extremely relevant crisis in Italy, which is the epidemic of femicides. The gender-based killings of women are particularly visible in cities like Bologna, her hometown. Through unapologetic silhouettes, intentional use of textiles, and garments that double as protest, her work is reclaiming the power lost to patriarchal societal standards. Her collection asks what fashion can do when silence becomes complicity. At a time when the fashion industry treats feminism as an aesthetic, Clotilde wants to reconceptualize it as a confrontation and a push for change. 

Growing up, the extent of her sewing and fashion knowledge was limited to small alterations on thrifted clothes, but by the time she enrolled in fashion school, she knew she wanted her work to hold meaning beyond the stitches. The direction of her thesis didn’t solidify until a wave of news reports about femicides spread across Italy, including several cases that happened right down the street from her. “Just this year alone, there have been 7 reported cases of femicide that have become well-known and garnered attention,” she says. “People in the past saw women as the weak ones, but I want to represent a woman's strength and show that women can stand up for themselves and fight back.” Before this year, countless stories of victims had disappeared from public attention quite rapidly, and Clotilde felt it was wrong for those stories to go untold. So, she channeled her grief into The Last Waltz. 

Dating back almost 70 years, the femicide epidemic has seen no end, especially in Italy. A study conducted by the National Institute of Health recorded 172 killings since 1950. Most of this statistic is the result of a dehumanizing provision that was still in use until 1981. Honor killings are when a convicted murderer receives a shorter sentence due to the justification of “dishonor” brought to a family by their daughter or wife. This was a special legal defense that significantly reduced the punishment for a multitude of homicides, with all of the victims being women. Moving into 2025, Italy attempted to reverse this history by unanimously passing a law that makes femicide a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The patriarchical control over women is still a prevalent issue that is deeply integrated not just in society, but in laws as well. Clotilde will not let this history be erased.

Two out of the five looks have been prototyped, and Clotilde's use of delicate fabrics, alongside bold and edgy silhouettes, tells the story of a woman and everything she represents. “ I want to show that a woman can dress however she wants, and she doesn't deserve to be murdered or killed for the clothes on her back,” Clotilde says. In many ways, the collection became a form of mourning as much as design. 

Fashion has always used feminist messaging to catalyze a collection, but most of the time, these collections are perceived aesthetically rather than politically. “With some designers, you can tell that they are in love with women and want to make them feel pretty and powerful, and others just do it for the aesthetic or the money,” Clotilde says. “I think Giorgio Armani's couture collections encapsulate what a woman is very well. He designs with only the woman in mind.” Clotilde worries that The Last Waltz could be misunderstood as simply an aesthetic statement rather than a political one. Despite this, she believes that fashion can play a major role in cultural conversations, and designers need to be willing to risk discomfort to effect change. 

Looking into the future of The Last Waltz, Clotilde wants to “raise more awareness about what has been happening while also advocating for the women who never had a voice during the loss and suffering.” Transforming a yard of fabric into a political statement is one way women in the fashion industry can effect radical change. “The likelihood of femicide is still very high, so women need to be vigilant and aware, because it could happen to anyone. That's exactly what the Last Waltz is.”