“In the beginning there’s a pair of scissors and some other clothes. For me, it always starts with the destruction of existing garments,” says Felipe Oliveira Baptista. He has worked like that since his first collection, “Memory of a Cocktail Dress and a Tail Jacket”, a whimsical meditation on the flounce that won him a Hyeres Fashion Festival award in 2002. The following year, the young Portuguese-born but Paris-based designer launched his own label and turned his attention to stripes in “Stripes on Strike”. In 2006, the LVMH group and Beams (Japan) have awarded him 32,000 euros.