Where does the name Hyacinth come from? Who says there is a border between elegance and eroticism? In Jacek Gleba’s world, these ideas are not just explored but lived. From Poland to Barcelona, his collections unfold like a personal archive, with each piece carrying a trace, a gesture, a memory. Open seams and unfinished edges are more than aesthetic choices. They speak of longing, of intimacy left unresolved, of touch that lingers just out of reach. In his designs, elegance and eroticism are not divided. One breathes through the other.
In Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun the erotic tension lies in everything unsaid, unsatisfied: a mood your collection elegantly mirrors through open seams and undone edges. Do you see fashion as a space to perform deferred desire, a kind of slow burn, like in a Wong Kar-wai film where touch never quite happens?
That’s a great way to put it! A lot of the collection is about the idea of touch never really happening. As you say, the undone edges reference something that is still unsatisfied. It is all about a longing, a want, a wish. The open seams allow the garments to move around the body, but they are also a form of invitation, like a glance.
I think fashion is the perfect way to convey this because making clothes is such an intimate practice. Cutting, sewing, draping… they are all very tactile. A lot of desires and wishes are transferred onto the fabric through the making process. I try to put a lot of heart into the pieces, and I hope that comes across.
I think fashion is the perfect way to convey this because making clothes is such an intimate practice. Cutting, sewing, draping… they are all very tactile. A lot of desires and wishes are transferred onto the fabric through the making process. I try to put a lot of heart into the pieces, and I hope that comes across.
There’s something intimate about the way you embedded diary entries into your garments: some discreetly hidden, others worn openly. What do you think clothing can reveal that words sometimes cannot?
Fashion and text are very similar: if you see every garment as a word, a look becomes a sentence, a series of looks make a collection, which can be either an essay or a story. I’d say fashion tends to be more honest than writing though. You can use words to lie, which you can’t really do with clothes, or at least not that easily.
You’ve mentioned that queerness is something you act out, not just wear. Do you think designers have a responsibility to shift queerness from costume to choreography?
I always say that looking queer is about how you move, talk, walk, not about what you wear. The great thing about this look is that it’s totally free and personal to each individual. With my fashion practice, I try to capture this and turn it into clothing.
I do think that our responsibility as designers is to look beyond nostalgia and define what queerness looks like today. We live in such a different world now, so the needs of queer dressing have completely changed. You can look queer taking the bus, in the office, sitting in the park, not just between the walls of a nightclub. So, what does that look like?
I do think that our responsibility as designers is to look beyond nostalgia and define what queerness looks like today. We live in such a different world now, so the needs of queer dressing have completely changed. You can look queer taking the bus, in the office, sitting in the park, not just between the walls of a nightclub. So, what does that look like?
Your work balances softness and structure, jersey briefs meet kitten heels, draped scarves meet tight leotards. How do you decide where elegance ends and eroticism begins?
I don’t really see a border between elegance and eroticism; both infuse each other!
You’ve called your designs a game of flirtation, not the act itself, but what leads up to it. If your clothes were characters from a film, are they more Fleabag series two’s Hot Priest or Call Me By Your Name’s Oliver?
Neither! They would be Michael Clark in Charles Atlas’ 1987 film Hail the New Puritan.
The name Hyacinth carries a complicated history in Poland, but it also traces back to your own name, which makes its use feel even more personal. A quiet reclamation. When you design, does it feel like you're creating your own kind of archive, one built on memory and intimacy, rather than fear or control?
I love the idea of seeing fashion as a personal archive, as a form of memory. Dance was a moving diary for Nijinsky. In the same way, I would love to see my fashion as a record of my life and my friends.
You’ve talked about how important lightness and feeling are in your work, that sense of being three-dimensional. But today, softness and queerness often get turned into quick trends or hashtags. How do you keep your designs from being flattened into just another aesthetic? And how do you hold onto the emotion behind them, especially with something like balletcore becoming so mainstream?
I think the emotion in the clothes comes from the research behind them. I am not really interested in online trends and aesthetics. When thinking about the collection, I dived into the work of choreographers like Nijinsky, Cunningham, Clark. I was looking at the films of Charles Atlas, Dario Argento, Kenneth Anger, and at the paintings of Patrick Procktor and Suzanne Valadon. I went to the Rambert Company costume archive and went to see my friends perform. There are so many people whose work moves me deeply and that is where the ideas for the clothes come from.
There’s a shirt in your collection that slowly took shape while a boy visited you over the holidays. You once said it “carried the memory of him.” In a time when fast fashion erases emotional permanence, do you think clothing can still be haunted, in the best way?
Absolutely! By including my diary entries in the clothes, I would like the wearer to see that the pieces were made in context, at a specific point in someone’s personal life. They can see the pieces as less of a product and more as part of someone’s story.
You’ve lived in Barcelona, London, and draw from Polish heritage, do you feel like you design in one specific language? Or is your work more like code-switching between cultures and memories?
I try to incorporate these cultures in different ways. I’m half Spanish and half Polish, but was raised in Barcelona. I really connect with a Mediterranean point of view; light, intimate, warm, welcoming, celebratory — which is how I would like my work to feel. I often look into Polish culture for creative reference (Nijinsky’s family was Polish, for instance) as a tool to discover more about my Polish heritage. I now live in London, and it inspires me every day; I see the clothes being worn here.
When you think about masculinity today, shaped by pop stars in pearls and TikTok boys in lace, what do you want your menswear to add to the conversation that isn’t already there?
The garments are very feminine because I am very feminine. There isn’t anything ground-breaking about a boy in a dress or kitten heels, and I don’t think that’s what’s special or interesting about the clothes. I’m not trying to make a point, it just comes naturally like that!
Is there something you intentionally keep hidden from the viewer in each collection, a detail stitched for no one but you?
Not really! I want to create in full transparency, with nothing to hide.
What kind of reaction do you hope someone has when they put on one of your pieces for the first time?
I would love for the fashion to alter the way the wearer moves, walks, speaks. The clothes should create a sense of graciousness, calmness, seductiveness, and most importantly, approachability. Hopefully, they make you want to dance.
