CamperLab: how the experimental line hit Paris Fashion Week

Every established footwear house has an edge it rarely shows the public. For Camper, that edge is CamperLab — the Mallorcan brand's avant-garde sub-label where experimental silhouettes, deconstructed finishes, and gender-free design collide with the craft tradition that has defined Camper since 1975. If you've searched for "camperlab" or "camper experimental shoes" and wondered what separates this line from the sneakers and Peu boots you already know, this is the full story: how CamperLab was born, what happened when it arrived at Paris Fashion Week, and what Cyprus shoppers can actually find today.

Stylino currently tracks 583 Camper products across retailers that ship to Cyprus, with the highest-priced pieces — at €220 — sitting in the territory where CamperLab's influence is most visible. Head to the Camper for the full live catalogue.

How Camper launched CamperLab

CamperLab grew out of Camper's Mallorcan DNA. The parent brand has always been rooted in Mediterranean pragmatism — shoes built to be comfortable and durable, designed on an island where craft workshops and leather suppliers cluster within driving distance. CamperLab took that infrastructure and gave it an opposing brief: forget market fit, forget commercial scale, explore.

The sub-label was conceived as a space where Camper's product development team could experiment with construction techniques, materials, and silhouettes without the constraint of mainline commercial viability. Think of it as an R&D runway: ideas that prove themselves in CamperLab collections can filter down into mainline Camper products over subsequent seasons. A sole compound tested in a CamperLab prototype might appear in a Peu Walker two years later; a leather treatment piloted in a limited CamperLab run might become standard across a mainline family.

This separation is deliberate. Mainline Camper serves a broad audience — families, commuters, people who want a well-made shoe that doesn't shout. CamperLab serves the fashion-forward audience that wants the shoe to start a conversation.

Achilles Ion Gabriel: the Finnish designer who redirected CamperLab

The most consequential chapter in CamperLab's recent history belongs to Achilles Ion Gabriel, a Finnish designer who took the creative director role and steered the sub-label from niche footwear experiment toward full-collection fashion statement. Gabriel's background — rooted in Scandinavian minimalism but drawn to raw textures, imperfection, and confrontational aesthetics — mapped onto CamperLab's existing DNA with surprising coherence.

Under Gabriel's direction, CamperLab expanded from footwear into clothing. Weather-beaten leather bombers, roughed-up waxed cotton coats, deliberately dirtied denim, and long-pile wool layers joined the shoe range, creating complete looks that felt lived-in and post-industrial rather than polished (as reported by WWD). Gabriel described his approach as "combining ugly and beauty" — an aesthetic tension that runs through every piece.

His casting reflected the same philosophy. Rather than booking conventionally attractive runway models, Gabriel worked with casting director Chouaïb Arif to assemble a roster of "characters" — street-cast individuals alongside industry names like Lia Lia, Gigi Goode, Raya Marigny, and Berlin's legendary Berghain doorman Sven Marquardt (per Highxtar). Every model wore gender-free pieces assigned during the dressing process, not pre-fitted to traditional sizing.

Paris Fashion Week: the show that put CamperLab on the map

CamperLab's debut at Paris Fashion Week took place at 62 Avenue de la République, in a space transformed to resemble an abandoned garage — concrete columns, spectral lighting, smoke, and raw wood flooring (per Highxtar). The set was designed to balance beauty and roughness, evoking what Gabriel described as a harsh, snow-blanketed landscape inspired by his childhood in the polar winters of Lapland (per WWD).

The Fall 2026 collection — Gabriel's final as creative director — arrived as a post-industrial meditation. Models walked in oversized silhouettes that subverted gender codes, carrying downsized handbags fitted with exaggerated metal buckles. The finale piece was an oversized trench wrapped as a voluminous skirt — a showpiece Gabriel acknowledged would likely never be produced, but which captured the ad-hoc, one-off spirit CamperLab represents.

Following Gabriel's departure at the end of January 2026, design responsibility passed to an in-house creative team (per WWD). The transition marks a new phase: CamperLab's DNA is now institutional rather than auteur-driven, which may bring more consistency between seasons — or may soften the confrontational edge that Gabriel brought.

Key designs: Storm, Tornado, and the elongated silhouette

CamperLab's design language under Gabriel coalesced around a handful of signature elements:

Elongated, pointy shoes. The Fall 2026 collection introduced dramatically extended toe shapes — a deliberate deviation from Camper's traditionally casual, chunky aesthetic. These elongated silhouettes provided a stark, almost formal contrast to the distressed outerwear, creating visual tension within each look (per WWD).

Storm. One of CamperLab's most recognisable shoe models, the Storm was reinterpreted beyond footwear in the Fall 2026 collection — reimagined as sunglasses that function as "visual armour" (per Highxtar). The move signals how CamperLab treats its models as design concepts rather than fixed product categories.

Tornado. The Tornado pushed sole construction to an extreme, adding spikes to the outsole that transform the shoe into a sculptural object (per Highxtar). It's impractical by mainline standards but serves its purpose as a laboratory piece — testing what happens when you strip utility from footwear and rebuild it as form.

Deconstructed finishes. Across the collection, materials were treated to look weathered, aged, and deliberately imperfect: ostrich-embossed leather, brush-off leather treatments, waxed cotton that looks roughed-up, and denim that appears pre-worn (per WWD). Gabriel framed this as "wearable imperfection" — not thrift-store aesthetic but something "flirting with that kind of idea, but elevated."

Bags. The LAUKKU and BIG LUNSSI bags continued CamperLab's approach to accessories — deforming everyday shapes into soft sculptural objects (per Highxtar).

How CamperLab differs from mainline Camper

Understanding where CamperLab ends and mainline Camper begins matters for anyone shopping the brand:

The relationship is symbiotic. CamperLab's experiments feed innovation back into mainline Camper. A sole technology, a leather finish, or a construction technique that debuts in a CamperLab runway piece may appear — refined and commercialised — in a mainline Camper shoe a season or two later. If you own a pair of Camper shoes with an unusual texture or an unexpectedly bold silhouette, there's a reasonable chance it traces its lineage back through a CamperLab prototype.

What Cyprus shoppers can find

CamperLab pieces are not sold as a separate brand on most retailer platforms — they typically appear under the Camper umbrella, often at the higher end of the price range. For Cyprus shoppers browsing retailers that ship to the island, this means the most likely route to CamperLab-influenced pieces is through the premium tier of the Camper catalogue.

On Stylino, Camper currently has 583 tracked products across multiple retailers. The top of the range — at €220 — sits at Politikos, with premium sneakers and loafers that carry the design DNA you'd expect from CamperLab's orbit: bold colourways, unconventional material combinations, and construction details that go beyond mainstream comfort footwear.

The practical advice: if you want the closest thing to CamperLab available with delivery to Cyprus, filter the Camper catalogue by price (highest first) and look for pieces above €150. These won't carry the CamperLab label explicitly, but they represent the segment of Camper's range where experimental design influence is strongest. Set a Stylino price-drop alert on any piece that interests you — CamperLab-tier prices hold firm during the season but may soften during end-of-season clearance windows.

For the full mainline range — and the more affordable Camper families like Peu, Beetle, and Twins — the Camper and the Camper list everything with live prices and retailer comparisons.

Frequently asked questions

Read next

• Camper story: from Mallorca shoemaker to global icon
• Mediterranean shoe brands in Cyprus
• Camper sustainability: B Corp circularity

Browse Camper shoes on Stylino

CamperLab proves that Camper is more than comfortable Mediterranean footwear — it's a brand with a genuine experimental edge. Whether you're drawn to the avant-garde end of the spectrum or prefer the everyday comfort of mainline families like Peu and Beetle, the full Camper catalogue with live prices across retailers that ship to Cyprus is on the Camper. Compare prices, set alerts, and find your pair.