Looking at Yona van Mansfeld’s latest collection, it reminded me of Matisse’s paintings, its strong colour blocks, the blue, the red, the sharp outlines, the round hips. But Yona’s inspiration in the ‘Elusive Clashing’ collection is Krijn de Koning, an artist who works with bright colors in modern objects and puts them in a classical environment; the most important part for her is draping. Maybe the bending point between Yona and Henry Matisse could be the fascination for a strong, trained feminine body.

Muscles, curves, skin and lines. She “puts the attention on these bodylines to accentuate the beautiful feminine silhouette and ads some estranging, body-reforming elements, tension is building up between the designs and the body, and gives the silhouette strength.”

“Ornamention is visible in my collection in my use of brocades and the dramatic long, draped pieces attached to some of the garments. The modern aspect shows in, for example, the very tight cut of the sleeves and use of neoprene. Primary colors clash with black and beige, while construction contrasts with drape, ridigity with flexibility, and woven fabrics with smooth, plain ones — all combined in one garment. In this collection I worked with small channels which I put a cord through, causing the garment to wrinkle and take on whatever shape and form I wanted. One dress started as a simple wide blouse with a wrinkled armhole which I made tighter to the body and longer; the pattern is totally the opposite of what you see when the piece is worn.”

Eindhoven based designer Bart Hess, already noticed by DC, has created this brilliant video introducing the graduate designers’ work of the Dutch Fashion Academy’s students (Yona van MAnsfeld under others) for MODEbelofte 2011, the fashion part of the Dutch Design Week. Re-shaping the human silhouette in a fluid slow motion exploring volumes, while only focusing on the garments. The video is an absolute work of art making him the winner of the MINI Young Designer Award.

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Photography: Jasper Abels

Wikipedia says:
A harness is a looped restraint or support. It can also be referred to as an “hitcharness”, especially by the Jordanian Armed Forces. Specifically, it may refer to one of the following harness types:
Bondage harness, Child harness, Climbing harness, Dog harness, Horse harness, Parrot harness, Safety harness, Windsurfing harness and… Zana Bayne harness….. and this one is the one we are going to speak about.
According to Villagevoice.com “only a little more than two years ago when Bayne, who has a wild mop of black curls, pale skin, and a mostly black wardrobe, moved to Brooklyn unsure of how she’d make a living. Hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, she dropped out of high school at 15 with the blessings of her “open-minded” parents, took the G.E.D., and enrolled the following year in the San Francisco Art Institute, where she received a conceptual-art degree in New Genres.
As documented on her blog Garbage Dress, she made her first harness in 2008 after she saw a woman in London wearing something that looked to her like “a belt with suspenders” over a shirtdress. Soon friends and fans of her blog began placing orders for her harnesses and her business grew and grew. She was finally able to quit her day job earlier this year to sell her leather design.”

Than Nicola Formichetti with Gaga, Terry Richardson with Chloe Sevigny, Katy Perry and Ciara came.

Dear Zana,
J-It must be obvious, but having success at 23 means you are very strong and clear in your mind.
How do you feel about yourself, your attitude?
Z-Since the beginning, my company has been about progression. I have not necessarily had one specific goal in
mind, only to work as hard as I can – the result being a steady increase in production, intensity, etc. I am happy
with what I am doing (creating things), but as most artists I am also very critical and quick to move onto new
projects. Luckily for me, the fashion industry is an incredibly fast-moving machine, which is a constantly creates
the challenges of deadlines and innovation. At times it can be overwhelming, but I would much rather push myself
every day than stay comfortably stagnant.
J-How do you get inspired and how you practically start to build your collection?
Z-My process of inspiration is pretty organic – bits of research, bits of observation, some thought towards fantasy
and other thought towards practicality. I usually begin with certain shapes that I want to create on the body. I like
to sketch out my design ideas until I have a clear piece. From there, another idea might form – I go through this
process of drawing & reexamining old sketchbooks until a theme or a vision comes through. Other times I have
direct reference points, such as the idea of the Torero & his embellished uniform, which acted as starting place
for my Fall/Winter collection.
J-What are you dreaming about?
Z-I dream about vacation, but once I get away from New York I instantly become anxious to return back.
J-You live in NY and you briefly lived in Berlin. Would you like to live in Europe?
Z-I love Berlin – I felt amorous towards the city from the moment I stepped off of the plane during my first. There
is an ability to use spaces for more abstract artistic purposes, in ways that would require large sums of money and
impossible permits in New York! That being said, I love living in Brooklyn, and can not imagine leaving the New
York & all of its conveniences. Its quite an epicenter for the design community, and an incredible breeding ground
for collaborative projects! So I think Europe will remain a place that I love to visit, but not make my home. Plus I
don’t speak any other languages (and I’m not proud of it).
J-Many talented and famous artists wear your pieces_Who would you love to see who has not yet? Who’s the one we
don’t know you’d like to introduce us (a friend, someone who really understands your work and adds something to
it)?
Z-It is truly an honor when I find someone who is high profile wearing something of mine, but what I really love is
when people integrate my work into their own style, especially when they wear it in a way I had never imagined!
I’ve seen friends flip harnesses upside down, put them backwards, intertwine them with other garments…that to
me is some of the greatest fulfillment! I also love seeing my pieces worn by people who have a completely
different style than my own, as it keeps my mind open.

grazie! baci

julikafrombudapest

Zana Bayne Leather • Look Book 2011 from Char Alfonzo on Vimeo. ]]> http://www.designcatwalk.com/zanas-harnesses/feed/ 0 http://www.designcatwalk.com/where-you-make-a-shoe-erik-bjerkesjo/ http://www.designcatwalk.com/where-you-make-a-shoe-erik-bjerkesjo/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 06:27:49 +0000 JulikaFromBudapest http://www.designcatwalk.com/?p=12581

Erik and I met on LinkedIn although we studied in the same city, Florence; I haven’t really worked out with that social media yet, but the lesson is always the same: surprises hide everywhere, even behind cold business messaging.

And from northern Europe, Sweden, is where this shoe designer comes from to make his collection with the great artisanal help of tuscan refined high quality leather and entirely handcratfted production in the same region very well known for beeing the cradle and birthplace of all the high quality leather products of the biggest heavy weights in the International Fashion industry.

Erik Bjerkesjo attended a master at Polimoda, Florence, in Advanced Fashion Footwear Design under the direction of Patrick de Muynck and Linda Loppa as a warming up preparation for his collection launch that was featured alongside Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester in the “obsessively curated and always progressive window of Luisa Via Roma, a holy institution of creative fashion patronage in Florence, known for being a barometer on upcoming designers and a prime showcase for conceptual artists like Felice Limosani.” …as for the blogazine 2DM that comments:

“The result is an intelligent and endlessly sophisticated collection, much like Mr. Bjerkesjö, who himself is always incomprehensibly stylish and pores over his work through handmade replicas of Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic spectacles.”

Here his interview for Polimoda mag.

julikafrombudapest

Asian Designer Duo COINONIA composed by Kiho Kim and Momoko Hashigami guide us to their ethereal world of fantasy. Transparencies and weightless silhouettes combined with neutral colors, blacks and whites or acid colors in contrast, to create eclectic and volatile garments, easy and discreet like a whisper, elegant and fragile like butteflies. Built up over the mannequin, searching for modern architectural lines, well defined but still delicate. Graduated inCentral Saint Martins Momoko from Japan met Kiho from Korea a graduate in Hangseung University in Seoul, and both joined forces to give birth to COINONIA. in Milan in 2010, where they launched their first collection 2010/2011 F/W in Paris.

Their collections play with gravity and space, tension release and balance, with the same energy that fades away in the air. A union without a merging point, two hearts that beat as one.

Aircompressors

A/W 11-12 “Ensayo para una despedida” by Mathieu Vladimir Alliard

A/W 10-11″Por que todo ha de ser color de rosa?” by Gabriel Torres

You don´t even figure out about your deepest feelings until you expose them, until you materialize them, until you transform them into something everyone can see.

Manuel Bolaño, transforms his childhood memories, his heartbreaks and nostalgias into pieces of fine art meticulously created.

He gets attached to every garment like a a child. He knits, embroiders, makes the patters, sews, cuts. He challenges himself with every collection; he goes against the machines and technology and constructs as an artisan with his own hands and works in every detail. He makes sure that every piece has a little bit of him, something he gives away, yet something that deeply inside he´ll never let go.

This Catalan Designer or I must say hand crafter moved with his parents to Galicia when he was 3 years old. Even though he was little boy, he couldn´t let go those memories and he always wanted to come back to Barcelona. Later on he came back to his beloved hometown and graduated in Fashion Design at Felicidad Duce school. After a period working with Mango he decided to follow his own path and start his own label winning in 2007 the Bread and Butter price for best collection, he participated in several contests for young designers all around Spain and presented his first 080 Barcelona Fashion Week show in 2007.

His three collections “Algo de Mi”, “Por que todo ha de ser color de rosa?” and “Ensayo para una despedida” are a trilogy about his childhood memories; his early years with his mother, memories of his grandma, the forests and the mysticism of the landscape of Galicia, with “Peliqueiros” it´s color and folklore; with his last collection SS/12 “How to mend a broken heart” presented in July this year and winner of the price for best female collection at the 080 Barcelona Fashion Week, he talks about love disappointments and intimate moments that touched him forever.

Manuel Bolaño´s melancholy, sensitivity and genius touches my heart every time i see one of his shows.

After all being sensitive brings us closer to the most sincere side of beauty.

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SS/11 “Algo de mi” by Anabel Luna

A/W 09-10 “Peliqueiros”

Pauline van Dongen was born in Amsterdam and she graduated Fashion Design BA from Academy of the Arts in Arnhem in the Netherlands.
In 2008 Pauline Van Dongen graduated with a BA in Fashion Design from the renowned Artez, Academy of the Arts in Arnhem, the Netherlands. It was there that she first met with the French method of pattern drafting called “moulage” (mold) Later she began printing silk jersey with puff ink applying heat to the fabric. During this process, she discovered that the ink expanded and pulled the fabric into a resilient and flexible plissé. She then continued her studies with a Masters Program at the Fashion Institute of Arnhem. During a shoe design course Product design took her attention too. And for her graduation project; ‘Morphogenesis’ she tried the technique of 3D printing gave her the opportunity to translate the sculptural feel of her garments into a rigid form.
The polyamide creations maintained the organic lines of her work with fabric. The outcome are these striking shoes that lend a futuristic look and feel to her overall collection.Her graduation collection Morphogenesis was awarded
‘most creative collection’ by the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana at Mittelmoda.

For Pauline’s FW11 ‘Stereopsis’ collection she quoted Goethe: “There is a strong shadow where there is much light”. And let’s be honest, many have used the contrast between shadow and light in their art mainly, most beloved Caravaggio. And just as the master’s own works Pauline Van Dongen used this concept in her collection. She explained ‘Stereopsis’ as: “As the eyes of humans and other animals are in different positions on the head, they present different views simultaneously. This is the basis of stereopsis, the process by which the brain exploits the parallax due to the different views from the eye to gain depth perception and estimate distances to objects.” This is the starting point of her womenswear collection Stereopsis, in which she explored this phenomenon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pauline’s newest collection is the ‘Kinetic Landscapes’. The concept was behind catching the moves of the two powerful elements in nature; air and water. The form of the dresses and the garments show the effects of these two elements on the surface of the earth. Offering an aesthetic of graphic lines and smooth curves with striking materials around the body.

Morphogenesis shoe design

Photography by Mike Nicolaassen

niente by nil

Summertime in Barcelona. People on the streets, the sound, the movement. A heat wave lashes the city; nothing can be sweeter now than a city that ends at the sea.

I was sneaking around Fashion visionaire Diane Pernet´s web page “A Shaded View on Fashion” and i found extraordinary news: the next ASVOFF Film festival will be held here, at the Caixa Forum Center in January 2012.

This avant-garde Fashion guru created the first film festival who s core theme was Fashion in 2008, giving a completely different perspective to Fashion film, photography and advertisement. Since then, the festival has been held in internationally well known cities for fashion, art and design such as Paris, Milan,Tokyo, Mexico City, Moscow and London, having Barcelona to join them as the next host.

The festival will have two main sections: the first one will be the “BEST OFF”; a selection curated by Diane Pernet herself, where she will present a selection of the best films of ASVOFF previous editions, and another “Competition” section with 3 categories:
Professionals, Students and Mobile Phones.

There will be screenings and prizes for the best short films, an international jury that includes international figures of the world of art such as Glenn Adamson, curator for the V&A museum in London, Francesca Thyssen from Thyssen Bornemizsa Art Contemporary in Vienna and Alanna Heiss, founder and former director of PS1 in New York; screenings for the best short films and winners of the past editions as well as installations and conferences, everything dedicated to fashion, beauty and style.

The festival is open to public and it s aim is to encourage not only professionals but also young filmmakers and people related to fashion to show their work and reinforce the link between fashion, film and new technologies having the last category Mobile Phones as the new category launched in this edition. The call for all the participants for the 2012 edition opened the 11th of July and will be closed the 1st of December 2011.

Splash proof news and shades to enjoy the summer… pick up your bike and follow me to the beach now.

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This post was submitted by Aircompressors.

Meera Sethi is an Indian-born, Toronto-based artist whose multi-disciplinary practice explores the relationship between material and nonmaterial culture, and the construction of self at this site. Her practice references Indian dress history, contemporary fashion and the global textile trade with a particular emphasis on clothing, fashion and identity.

Firangi Rang Barangi is the name of a series of paintings that celebrate the bold, unapologetic and creative personal style of people who cross vast cultural borders. “Firangi Rang Barangi” is Hindi for “colourful foreigner” and speaks to the perpetual sense of “otherness” or “outsiderness” that marks immigrant and diasporic communities.

This work references fashion, clothing, ornamentation and style from a range of different sources to produce an identity that is fresh and unique, yet deeply rooted in that diasporic, transnational experience.

found for you by julikafrombudapest

I was very busy working in Bombay but one thing my friend and designer Sara Bardotti told me I could not miss is the shop Bombay Electric.
This funky place right behind the Taj Mahal and the Taj Hotel (where I saw beautiful women in rich embroidered saris, creating an ancient and truly Indian atmosphere) was described by Paper Mag as “the spot for the hippest Indian designers” and by Superfuture as “India’s answer to progressive hybrid design and fashion”

Selling Vintage, pop or classic Jewellery, funky and traditional clothing, and all indian trendy designers (that unfortunately are not listed on the web site…but I’ll write about them!), Bombay Electric won’t let you go home with an empty shopping bag.

I bought a Manish silk scarf, a wonderful Rachana Reddy wooden clutch (love it!!!), a vintage silver anklet, and an electric Ganesha for my prayer’s corner!

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Aurelie Dellasanta is a french swiss jewellery designer. She studied at the Royal college of Art.

I love her themes, which are all to be discovered on her website:

“Light my fire is an independent project which aim to respond to the question where is the ‘sacred’ in our modern reality? I wanted to question the reminiscence of the ancient ‘sacred’ in our contemporary reality, confronted with the new objects of adoration, as technology, massive consumption, image body etc. The mixture of these ancient symbols with modern ‘ beliefs’ results in anachronistic situations that are fascinating to study.Through design based on mixing ancient and modern symbols, I want people to ask themselves, what is sacred for them? How do they feel confronted by the question of what are the sacred values that they believe in? Is it religion, love, power, body image, consumption or something else? I have left this as an open question in this piece of work.”

or

Rosaries and Medals of Horror
“I am interested in the meaning of rosaries and medals of honour. Thoses objects are connected to practices which are glorified by human beings: religion and war. Religion and war are very often linked. Human beings use war to impose their religion. War heroes are rewarded with medals of honours for their bravery, in other words, for being brave enought to kill people. I want to show also the way how in our present world, humans pervert sipritual practices into an image cult, to satisfy their greed for money, or to implement a dogma.”

check it out!

julikafrombudapest ]]> http://www.designcatwalk.com/aurelie-della-santa/feed/ 0