Rust to Rust

An evening dress printed with the image of a rust covered steel wall. All lookbook photos by Julia Chesky.

I always look forward to seeing Jonathan Cohen's new collection every season, and finding out what completely random item or material he managed to transmogrify into an incredible print.  For Spring 2012, he started with an image of a rusted over steel wall, and then slowly built off of that theme of gentle decay with images of rusted bike gears and a set of ivy covered lockers.  None of these things are immediately recognizable until they are explained, and a small nail head or the handle of a locker is spotted amongst the otherwise abstract looking image.  Even though the fabrics are digitally printed photographs, they have been manipulated to have a washed-out, painterly effect, rather than the uber-realistic feel of most digital prints.  The painterly effect of the digital print pieces were also mirrored in a hand-painted leather dress, which mimicked the photograph of the ivy covered lockers. In the lookbook photographs it is hard to distinguish which is the painted version, and which is the printed one, and the entire collection plays around with these faded perceptual boundaries.

The hand painted leather dress.

This print is a photograph of a rusted over bike gear.
 

-Tiffany

Bright Lights

All photos by Sofi Svensson

Sofi Svensson is another one of the rising talents that showed at the Swedish School of Textile Graduate Show last month. To say that her work is eyecatching is an understatement--her senior collection was embroidered with hundreds of brightly colored beads and embellished with oversized sparkling sequins, with all the contrasting textures and colors vying for the viewer's attention.  Though the outfits wouldn't look out of place at a rave, or at Kenny Kenny's Sunday night party at Vandam, they were not inspired by clubkids, but somewhat counterintuitively, by mindfulness and meditation.  The collection, which was titled "Inner Light," tells a story of looking for peace, balance and happiness, and finding that shining inner light, which in turn manifests itself in a very extroverted manner.

-Tiffany

A Family Affair

All photos by Ryan MacFarland

Ursidae, which means The Family of Bears, is very much a family project. When my friend Maj Anya DeBear's father Robert was diagnosed with cancer, he set his daughters with the task of making use of a series of Tessellation drawings that he had created in 1975. Tessellations, which were made famous by artist M.C. Escher, consist of infinite fields of interlocking forms or figures. The work had never been seen by anyone outside of his immediate family before, and Maj Anya and her siblings decided to figure out a way to share the mesmerizing drawings with the public.

Maj Anya, who is an incredibly talented artist in her own right, turned the drawings into textile designs, imbued with vivid colors.  Her first project was a dramatic custom made dress that she collaborated on with her friend Carlo Alcantara for the musician Oh Land, featuring cascading interlocking birds.  Following the success of the project, and the cathartic experience of having her father witness the dynamic dress on stage before his passing, she also decided to create a line of sweeping scarves from the fabric. The choice was based on the heirloom nature of scarves, which are passed down from generation to generation, much like her father's drawings were passed down to her and her siblings.  The story is incredibly moving, and the work is very compelling on its own. I can't think of a more beautiful way to commemorate a moment of loss.

-Tiffany

Eternity Now

Student shows are always a mixed bag, which is exactly why they are usually so much fun to watch. While there are inevitably a fair a share of designers who look like Project Runway castoffs, there are also plenty of emerging talents. The Swedish School of Textiles Graduate Show is always saturated with the country's top creatives, and it was one of the shows I looked forward to seeing the most while I was in Stockholm.  While there are plenty of highlights that I will share with you later, I left with a singular obsession with Clara Flygare's collection, "Eternity Now." Combining uber-oversized tent-shaped dresses with hypnotic prints of pyramids, evil eyes, and pagan symbols, the models looked like Bedouin tribeswomen who had arrived at the Blair Witch Trial. I highly suggest you take a look at all of Clara's lookbook photos, as well as her film below. I think you will become obsessed too.

Lookbook photo by Per Moller 


I am the Maenad - Clara Flygare from Everyone We Know on Vimeo.

-Tiffany

Hyères --> New York

Michael Kampe's amazing digital print parka. I know someone who would look amazing in this...

This afternoon, Brandon and I stopped by the Premiere Vision textile show with the intent of taking a look at the newest textiles and materials available for clothing and accessories design. I came out rather disappointed as a jewelry designer, as there wasn't much that I could use, but I did appreciate the fact that they had some of the designs from the Hyères Festival finalists on display. I've read and heard much about the famous design festival, but have never been, nor have I ever seen any of the pieces in person. While they did not allow photographs to be taken of Festival winner Celine Meteil's designs, I actually found that I preferred the work of a couple of the other designers who were displayed. My absolute favorite was a digital print structural Men's parka designed by Michael Kampe that would look perfect on the gay hubby. Wish I could lift it for him, but alas, it was too bulky to stuff under my skirt. I was also obsessed with Emilie Meldem's cage dress, that was constructed from leather straps and linen petals. I can't help but think it was made with Susie Bubble in mind.

A close-up of the digital print

Emilie Meldem's cagey dress


Maryam Kordbachen


Juliette Alleaume & Marie Vial

Juliette Alleaume & Marie Vial

Oda Pausma

-Tiffany

Rorschach Mania

My favorite dress from the collection, featuring a Rorschach inspired digital print.

This past Friday, I was invited to stop by the Sachin + Babi Resort lookbook shoot, to get a glimpse of the new collection, and take some backstage photos of the pieces up close. Husband and wife design team Sachin Ahluwalia and Babi Ahluwalia have a long and storied history in the textile design industry. Both Sachin and Babi grew up in families involved with the textile industry in their home country of India, and then ended up meeting while studying Textile Design at F.I.T. They first started their textile company, ANK, in 1996, providing fabrics to legendary fashion houses like Oscar De La Renta, YSL, and Derek Lam, before launching their luxury home line, ANKASA in 2004. In 2008, the couple launched their ready-to-wear line, and the clothes heavily feature their background in textiles. Each garment is made from their custom prints and fabrics, and often feature three or four contrasting fabrics mixed together.

This season, Sachin + Babi drew inspiration from Rorschach test ink splatters, starting with a distorted digital print of the original ink splatters rendered in a rainbow burst, which was meant to have the appearance of a modernized Ikat print. They also laser-cut the ink-splatter silhouette into the fabric, and created leather ink-splatter cut-outs, which they applied to their bags and accessories. My favorite pieces however were the jewels of course, and I totally fell for the giant collars made out of metal cutout Rorschach splotches.

A close up of the digital print

One of the Rorschach inspired enameled collar necklaces

I loved this sweater, with it's mixture of different embroideries.


The accessories table was overflowing with these mixed metal and leather bangles

-Tiffany