When Keith Haring picked up a brush in 1983 to create the Montreux Jazz Festival poster, and when David Bowie took his turn in 1995, they were participating in a tradition that had already established itself as one of the most prestigious commissions in visual arts. Since 1967, the Swiss festival has handed creative freedom to painters, illustrators and graphic designers, building a collection of posters that chart nearly six decades of visual culture.
This year, however, the festival has made a decision that signals something more significant than simply choosing another artist. By appointing fashion designer Kévin Germanier to create the poster for its 60th edition in 2026, Montreux has broken new ground; not just for the festival, but for the increasingly porous boundaries between creative disciplines.
Kévin’s creation is the first embroidered poster in the festival’s history, a three-dimensional artwork composed of more than 60,000 upcycled beads, sequins, and materials meticulously hand-stitched onto velvet. Six artisans worked simultaneously to achieve what the designer describes as “organised chaos” – a technical feat that required the precision and collaborative energy of a haute couture atelier.
Better still, every element—from glass and wooden beads to fragments of electrical tubing—has been salvaged from previous collections, embodying Kévin’s unwavering commitment to sustainability.
The evolution of a tradition
The choice represents a departure from convention, yet it sits comfortably within the festival’s history of risk-taking.
Art consultant Pierre Keller recruited artists such as Jean Tinguely, Keith Haring, Niki de Saint Phalle and Andy Warhol to create artwork for the festival in the 1980s, establishing Montreux as a platform where visual art and music culture intersect. More recently, artists including Yoann Lemoine (Woodkid), Malika Favre, Christian Marclay, Ignasi Monreal, JR and Camille Walala have contributed designs.
What makes Kévin’s appointment noteworthy isn’t simply that he works in fashion; it’s the methodology he brings with him. Where poster artists typically work within the familiar territories of painting, illustration, or graphic design, Kévin has translated the labour-intensive processes of haute couture into a traditionally two-dimensional medium.
The result is a poster that exists as both artwork and artefact, a piece that will be exhibited at MUDAC in Lausanne as part of the designer’s exhibition Les Monstrueuses before finding its place in the festival boutique.
When sustainability becomes spectacle
It’s typically groundbreaking work for the Swiss designer, now based in Paris, who’s built his reputation on the premise that sustainability in fashion needn’t require sacrifice.
After winning the Redress Award in 2015, a contest judged by sustainable fashion advocate Orsola de Castro, Kévin established his eponymous label in Paris in 2018. His work for Björk, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, alongside recent costume design commissions for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games ceremonies and the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, demonstrates how upcycling can achieve theatrical impact without compromising on glamour.
For the new poster, Kévin immersed himself in the festival’s archive, studying decades of work before picking a direction inspired by the 1982 design by the sculptor Jean Tinguely.
Kévin’s choice of colour palette, black background and feather motifs all reference that earlier piece, whilst the maximalist aesthetic remains unmistakably Kévin’s own. “My favourite Montreux posters are those that represent the Festival in a non-literal way,” he explains. “Music isn’t just a saxophone or a guitar; it’s a feeling. I tried to convey that explosion, that emotion that moves both your body and your heart.”
Cross-pollination as creative strategy
One of the things that Kévin’s appointment reveals is the increasing fluidity between creative disciplines at the highest level. Fashion designers are creating stage sets, graphic designers are producing installations, and musicians are directing films. The traditional silos that once separated these practices are dissolving, replaced by a model where technique and craft can migrate freely between contexts.
It’s one of a series of inspired choices the festival has made recently. Last year’s poster was created by London-based artist Lakwena, whose typographic design was the first of its kind in Montreux’s history, featuring text as the central element and quoting Nina Simone’s lyrics.
Before that, Geneva artist Rylsee created a street art-inspired poster focused on festivalgoers themselves, rather than literal representations of music. With each of these commissions pushing the tradition in new directions, it’s clear the festival’s leadership sees the poster series not as a static archive, but as a living dialogue about what visual art can be.
Creative journey
The physical poster will travel from MUDAC to the festival, where it will be displayed alongside works by some of the most celebrated visual artists of the past six decades. That journey—from museum to festival boutique, from haute couture atelier to cultural landmark—traces the path that creative work increasingly follows: crossing contexts, adapting to new audiences, refusing to stay within prescribed boundaries.
As Montreux prepares for its 60th edition, Kévin’s embroidered, upcycled, three-dimensional poster stands as evidence that the most interesting creative work often happens when practitioners bring their expertise to unfamiliar territory.
The question isn’t whether fashion designers can create posters or whether illustrators can design costumes. It’s whether we’re prepared to abandon the categories altogether and embrace a more fluid, collaborative model of creative practice. On the evidence of this commission, the answer appears to be yes.
