There are many up and coming young fashion brands out there who are still in the process of navigating to find their brand voices within the industry. Some have found solace in RTW, others in menswear , streetwear etc. London based Designer Robert Wun, has already made himself into somewhat of a prodigy, having found his design knack for futuristic silhouettes and natural forms.
The LCF graduate who launched his namesake brand in 2013, offers a very fresh approach to the genre of womenswear by sculpting each piece with intention and attention to detail, using bold cuts and strong shapes to contrast with bright colours as a statement of feminine power. Each of his pieces hold a story, not just as an entire look, but rather every shoe, every hat , every blouse, razor cut skirt, every double stitch, all separately tell tales of a mystical futuristic world that leaves its audience so desperately yearning for more. His collections are a sight for sore eyes that makes one seriously lust and ponder over his vast creative capacity. Twin recently caught up with the man behind the grand desirable sculptures to discuss his process, SS20 collection and quarantine routines.
What was the inspiration behind your SS20 collection? Does the collection have a title ?
The SS20 collection is named “ Orchid Mantis “
I continue to draw inspiration from the infamous female warrior Mulan, which I first introduced in the SS19 collection, the collection pays homage to the full spectrum of qualities celebrated about this legendary character who has paved the way for feminists of the modern day. Hua Mulan, her name 花木蘭 meaning flower, wood and orchid.
I decided to further explore the potential of the orchid as an inspiration in the SS20 collection, studying one of my favourite animals , the Orchid Mantis’ on it forms its shape . a beautiful yet deadly camouflage. I have transformed that petal shape throughout the collection with a technique which allows the seams to reverse and extend out as the shape of flower petals, which is one of the main highlights of the collection.
What’s your design process like ?
I normally will start with an image or a sketch of rough visuals from my mind, then illustrate the garments to be able to move forward technically, it always starts with the idea into one garment first.
Then afterwards it’s just hours and hours of placing different fabrics and swatches next to that illustration until I feel right. Pushing the range and transforming that first design into a full range of garments and into different looks. Lastly would be the execution in pattern, testing of fabrication and techniques. Once that first piece is physically done, I will get a clearer picture for the rest of the collection.
Your futuristic approach to silhouettes is really quite interesting , what is it that influences this ? Do you have a knack for architecture ?
I am actually more inspired by nature versus artificial architecture, at the end nature is somewhat of an architect too!
My admiration towards nature will always be the core of my creative process, and I always believe nothing can be more original and timeless when it’s inspired by something so real and far from artificial, and nature offers a kind of beauty that humbles and motivates you, and something as raw and genuine as nature, everyone could interpret it differently.
Do you imagine that this type of eccentric silhouette is where womenswear will be heading in the future?
I like to believe the future of womenswear is a celebration of individuality, where designers can be celebrated by doing what they want and who they are and what they do best. I am always inspired by unapologetic individuals who embrace femininity in a bold and provocative way, never thought of on a mass market scale or creating an influential trend, just trying to pursue what I love and grateful for the audiences, no matter the size who supports it.
What’s your favourite fabric to work with ?
Not any in particular, as different fabrics and materials serve for different ideas and effects so it depends on the design. Although a good sturdy bonded fabric, or crease proof materials are something I always work with, as I tend to create things with a futuristic touch on finishing and sculpted silhouettes.
What’s been the most difficult part of your journey as a young designer?
I was not fully aware of the business side of fashion at all when I first started, which makes pricing and the production side difficult to navigate, also completely oblivious to the marketing and sales side of the industry.
Through time I have started to understand the need to learn it as a business, and the importance of asking for help and advice. I eventually got an investor two months after the Joyce launch of my graduate collection, who helped me set up a proper business support, since then I have learned from every season as I carry on, 4 years ago I decided to become independent to look for better future partners to take this to the new level.
What’s been the most gratifying experience as a young designer?
To be able to have 100% creative control and being afforded the freedom to make mistakes. Also being able to define your own equation to navigate through the industry! I didn’t get a lot of sponsorships or awards as most emerging brands got when they first started, and those titles had become an essential to show the industry you are promising and have an “authorised” future.
I learned that it is ok to not have a sponsored show and to carry on after being told no, and I’ve also learnt not to invest in expensive showcases which you can’t afford, but just focus on good work and good photography and let them speak for themselves, and I have been doing that ever since. Something we can easily forget as designers nowadays, is to just focus on delivering good designs and well made garments and let them speak for themselves.
I am quite grateful now when I look back that I didn’t get these opportunities, from my graduation to many programs that I also didn’t get selected at the beginning of my career, as they made me more focused on pushing creatively as a designer, and more ready as a business person too on building a solid foundation for longevity.
If you had to choose a woman in the public eye or a movie character who embodies the Robert Wun aesthetic , who would it be ?
Dream character would be a sci-fiction character by the Wachowskis siblings or Ridley Scott, as Trinity from the matrix and Ripley from Aliens are some characters that have inspired me deeply. Or even if there was a modern day or futuristic interpretation of Mulan that would be great to design for!
I’d also love to dress a Bae Donna, Bjork, Lizzo, Yalitza Aparicio, Kelly Marie Tran, Noomi Rapace, Tilda Swinton, Rooney Mara and Rihanna etc in the future. Women who are authentic and shaping the future.
If you use a movie, a song, or a poem to define your work , what would it be ?
A movie would be Princess Mononoke by Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki
A song would be Taro by Alt J
How’ve you been handling the quarantine?
Keep sketching and draping and watching movies! It’s hard to stop even at home, especially considering that most business errands have to be put aside now, focusing on the positive note as it could be a brand new start for the SS21 collection in September, with hope that the pandemic will have passed by then.
Is there anything you’re hoping will change in the fashion system post COVID-19?
Buying better on the consumer side and for the industry to put less pressure on creatives and allow them to design less product orientated collections. Which ultimately means what everyone’s been talking about; slowing down and having less collections=less waste and healthier mentality for the industry.
How / Where can one purchase/order your pieces ?
We will have a brand new distribution of stockists at the end of this year starting from SS21 collection.
The world is a scary place at the moment. And this season, fashion has taken notice. Designers have been either making open political statements through their clothing or indulging in an escapist mode by presenting bold garments which express their need to run away to distant lands. British-Canadian designer Edeline Lee is very aware of it, and that’s exactly why her Spring Summer 2020 collection was a light, brightly coloured burst of joy.
This season, the designer wanted to inject a bit of optimism in her clothing, as past season’s fall-winter 2019 presentation had such a tough subject matter (she had been inspired by professor Mary Beard’s feminist manifesto, Women & Power, where Lee made the case for the runway as soapbox).
“I feel like we need a bit of optimism right now and so I felt like I needed something light which could contrast the darkness of everything that’s been going on at the moment,” she said.
Following up from her experiential presentation of last season, this time Lee collaborated with Sharon Horgan, the Irish actress and writer who starred and co-wrote Catastrophe and created HBO’s Divorce, for a presentation which verged on the line between theatre and runway.
“Sharon and I are friends but not only that. I am such a big fan of her work, her voice and the way she talks about the human condition is so acute and real and to the skin,” she says.
And the clothes she presented exuded exactly the same vibe, they were real clothes for real women, which featured simple silhouettes – ranging from a series of white shirts and brightly coloured midi dresses in a palette of greens, blues and reds, to a series of brightly coloured striped numbers, to finally, a series of dresses made in her signature jacquard.
“In the show in a way what we’re trying to do is juxtapose the lightness of the clothes to these real-life moments which are acted out by a series of actresses, who sort of stop and get distracted by real-life passing by and then they stop and go back to their intimate realities,” she says. “It’s sort of like a play on a juxtaposition of these different versions of life.”
Sitting in one spot over the course of 15 minutes you would be able to experience every skit presented by the actresses almost as if eavesdropping on conversations of everyday life.
Lee’s collaboration was a refreshing take on a runway experience – and it definitely helped her in trying to represent who her woman really is and making people understand who she’s making her clothes for and the audience she’s making it for. Collaborations like these are a fun way to get the point across and are also more memorable experiences in a month where editors see an enormous quantity of shows.
Young designers merging the borders between art and fashion are rare birds waiting to be found and are indeed not easy to find.
Pauline De Blonay, a recent runner up of the prestigious L’Oreal Pro Young Talent Award, and a Central Saint Martins graduate, seems to be one of them. The Swiss-born designer had been dreaming of going to London’s infamous hub of creativity since the age of fourteen years old, yet her way into fashion wasn’t a regular one, like you would expect.
“Initially I thought I would study Fine Art and started by doing a foundation year in Jewellery design, however when I realized that I wanted to work on a bigger scale and to combine fashion, fine art and jewellery, I applied for the BA in Fashion Design in order to work this way,” she says.
Art had and has been influencing her work since she was a little kid, paintings in particular, as her art tutor would make her and her peers replicate paintings that they loved, and hers included a lot of harlequins from Picasso and some dreamy spaces and characters from Edward Hopper. With time she kept on being inspired by painters, such as Modigliani and Egon Schiele.
This multi-faceted approach towards visual thinking is what intrigued her and pushed her towards working with different combinations of various different techniques and materials, from jewellery to painting.
“It was important to me to combine every skill or knowledge I possess in order to realize the looks I design,” she says. “It was essential for me to be in control of every detail of the collection I wanted to create, such as the metalwork, which took me a while to figure out my own way of casting metal in my own flat, the prints for the garments and accessories, the shoes, the make up, etc,”.
And indeed it is polyhedric approach of hers to design which makes her clothing so intriguing and interesting.
Her first collection, showcased during Central Saint Martin’s final year fashion show, was an exploration of her identity and the notions of masculine and feminine. She wanted to create a duel between masculine and feminine images and merge them together. A suit and a cast of her breasts, feathers locked in metal, dresses that you can mould that look powerful and strong but which are fragile at the same time because you can change their shape. In addition to that she created many portraits of the people who surround her and included them as patterns to some of her dresses.
“My idea was that I was extending myself onto other people’s body by giving them casted parts of my body in metal and all these drawing of people that are important for me are represented too. They are an important part of my identity,” she explains. In a sense, it was a way for her of reuniting all of her relationships, by featuring on her garments. It was like a rendez-vous of the people that she deeply cares about.
Yet, after being the runner up to the L’Oreal Pro Young Talent Award, which brought her attention and visibility, what has the future in store for her? Will London still be the center of her world?
“I spent five years of my life evolving in the creative heart of London, being at CSM,” she says. “I have made the most amazing and creative friends who inspire me every day. Being in London and especially at Central Saint Martins, supported by amazing tutors gave me the strength and possibility to create and concretise a collection which represents me at best. I needed that time in London to evolve the way I did to get all the tools necessary to make my first collection happen.”
For now, an itinerant move to another city isn’t in the works, yet, wherever she’ll be, be it in London or another international city, she has in store of extending her collection and keep on making magical garments.
The needle and thread, the binding hallmark of the fashion industry is devoid in the work and craftsmanship of the fashion designer Andrew Bell.
Using cutting-edge sonic welding technology, in a disruptive approach that undermines the one constant that has traditionally kept fashion together, Andrew is a creative looking at alternative means to design. For Andrew contemporary fashion is stuck: designers are consistently creating the same shapes and silhouettes, very much defined by tools and techniques which have not changed for decades. Having graduated from Zowie Broach’s MA degree at the Royal College of Art, Andrew was one of the front running thinkers of her encouragement towards radical thinking: the graduate show entitled All At Once summarising the spectral chest of ideas on show.
Unpicking the traditional and moving forwards with new technology is central to what makes Bell’s aesthetic fresh and striking. Collapsible coats, razor sharp pants and fluid-cut tops combine to project a signature look that crisp, sharp, compact and concise. Side-stepping the familiar, traditional and pre-determined is at the heart of what makes Bell’s work engaging. Animatedly explaining how he used Sonic welding technology to seal not only to edges and outlines of his pieces, but to bind the very aesthetic direction of his work, Andrew has ensured that in the absence of stitch lines his pieces are super-lightweight, which in turn allowed him to develop a series of collapsible coats and jackets that fold completely flat to just 1.5cm in profile.
Andrew’s work hinges on an axis of high-low paradoxes. On one hand his cutting references the collapsible hover bag, on the other the very cornerstone of modern womenswear tailoring – the Dior Bar Jacket. For Andrew this paradox reflects the collapse in the traditional frameworks that bind our notions of ‘luxury’ and ‘non-luxury’ in an era of material excess. In this saturated context Andrew’s work presents in part a portrait of the collapsible, but equally projects an alternative vision for the future, with ‘Future Tailoring’ the term the designer uses to condense and communicate his approach.
Across his MA collection Andrew has explored the hallmarks of a new era of garment construction across a spectrum of materiality; from sharp and structured to soft and fluid. The edges of this new aesthetic are instantly identifiable through his iconic zig-zag emblem; More subtle is the completely clean-cut, non-fray edge that defines every other sleeve and side seam in the collection. Up close, the zig-zag edging harks of easy-open, single-use supermarket stock.
Collaborating with a print designer, Ciaran Moore, on the fabric, the pair capture the beauty of industrial textures, such as the rusty non-slip grills that go unnoticed under our feet. The ephemeral geo-prints that line envelopes and parcels sit side by side with heritage herringbones; luxury and the lo-fi abound. This approach is extended to the footwear in the collection too. In collaboration with fellow RCA alumnus Tabitha Ringwood, the pair present a capsule of footwear completely crafted from scratch. For the heels the designer borrowed the humble door wedge, re-moulding it both physically and conceptually as an object of beauty that extends beyond its primary status as a mass-produced, valueless and solely functional article.
Perfume is an off-shoot, but nonetheless connected project to Andrew’s vision: exploring the potential of a fragrance focused magazine that features different contributors each issue. Just as the designer’s outerwear collapses the material hierarchies of ‘luxury’ and ‘non-luxury’, so too does his fragrance concept. In the place of traditional cut-glass bottle, Bell’s concept sees bio-degradable PVC sachets as a sustainable alternative. As such Andrew dissolves the most expensive aspect to any fragrance – the bottle – allowing fragrance to become more accessible to young designers and their audience.
Andrew’s work reminds us that aesthetics and technology can harmoniously inhabit a creative space together – technology cannot abandon visual beauty, nor can form ignore the potential and the responsibilities of production and design. Andrew has allowed technology to shape his process, re-articulating items of the banal everyday into structures of body-skimming beauty. As Bell surmises, in order to break the deadlock, the repetition and the dead-stock, fashion must look to new ways of making, and new ways of thinking.
It’s an approach that Bell attributes to the inimitable teachings of Zowie Broach, a modus operandi that demands a fearlessness in approach. Under Broach’s leadership Andrew was chosen by Value Retail to be the 2nd recipient of the highly coveted support scheme for rising Irish talent; The Kildare Village Fashion Scholarship which allowed Andrew to take his place at the RCA, an opportunity that the designer explains would otherwise have been closed to him.
The designer is often a perfectionist: in the way they touch, feel, look. Every facet is examined, explained and evaluated in detail. Andrew Bell is no exception – it is this exhaustive dedication to the metaphorical folding of fashion that has allowed a designer to emerge that is refreshingly new.
Within the past few months you’ve probably noticed that faux fur hats and garments have been trending, from the streets of London, Milan and Paris Fashion weeks, to magazine editorials and cover shoots. Upon further inspection, you’ll probably find out that a great number of these pieces were made by British millennial milliner Emma Brewin. Her clientele has been from the likes of Rita Ora, Miley Cyrus, Adwoa Aboah to Kylie Jenner for Paper Magazine, Vogue USA among others. Brewin has been stitching faux fur outerwear and accessories for these pop culture behemoths from the comfort of her hometown Sandwich in South East England.
“I really enjoy being out here in the middle of nowhere and doing my own thing,” she says. Twin sat down with the designer for a chat about struggles, inspiration, and the creative direction behind her latest SS19 Campaign shot by photographer Chloe Sheppard.
When and how did you learn to make hats?
I studied fashion design at university but I suppose I am self-taught in millinery. I made my first hat back in 2013, to match a coat I had made, and now I can’t make a coat without a furry topper!
What persuaded you to go in the direction of faux fur as opposed to any other fabric?
At university I did lots of studies into what fabrics children find most appealing when dressing up, and fur was a always up there with the first things they grabbed, once I started working with it I completely fell in love, for me it can complete any outfit and make it so much more special.
How long does it take you to make each piece?
It completely depends on the piece but if I am working on a hat I always give myself a full day from start to brushing and boxing up.
What was the direction behind your SS19 campaign and collection?
When starting a collection I never really have any particular direction, it’s my favourite part of the whole process, the girls and I just make, make and make. Usually producing pieces that we would dream of finding in old vintage shops then playing around with them until they are perfect. The studio is like a fancy dress box of hats, and the ones we dress up in the most are usually the ones we put into production. In regards to the campaign we really wanted to let the hats speak for themselves, which is why (for the first time) we shot in a studio.
Where, what or who do you look to for inspiration?
Everything old.
What has been your greatest challenge since the launch of the label?
Relinquishing control and not doing every job myself.
Who is the ideal Emma Brewin woman?
Our customers. We really do have the best customers on Earth.
What’s next for you?
We have spent January and February locked in the studio making some wonderful new styles, we released a sneak peek of our new Cat Hat on Instagram the other day, and have some matching new accessories to twin with our hats coming very soon..
American-born Central Saint Martin third-year fashion design student Harris Reed has quickly became on of the most recent names to know in fashion.
With his natural appetite for androgyny fused with an impeccable taste in design, Reed has found himself gaining attention from celebrities such as Solange Knowles and Troye Sivan. He’s also designed collections exclusively for singer-songwriter Harry Styles. Only a few months ago , the designer was tapped by Gucci to take over their instagram stories during the Cruise 2019 show and to debut on the runway himself in Arles, France.
Twin contributor Jordan Anderson sits down with the creative to decipher the details of his whirlwind of success.
Harry Styles sporting one of Reed’s looks during a performance.
Jordan Anderson (JA) : First of all I have to ask, what were your exact thoughts walking down that aisle for Gucci in Arles?
Harris Reed (HR) : I remember the one thought going through my head was that this is it, this is the beginning of it all. With all the editors from all sorts of magazines that I’ve admired sitting in the audience, it was just kind of this overwhelming feeling knowing that I am one of the only designers that is being supported in this way by such huge brand. After all the hard work I put in, and am still putting in, this was like the best sort of graduation anyone could ever have.
JA: What’s an average day like in the life of Harris reed?
HR: Lately it’s been waking up at 7am and attending to emails, running out to get coffee and starting to do research on different things happening around London. I usually visit the National Portrait Gallery and other art exhibitions around town where I often find inspiration for my work.
Some days I’ll return home and do interviews all evening or some days I’ll stay up sewing until 4 a.m, but pretty much the bulk of my days involve emails, research and sewing.
JA: The title of your last collection was the “The Lost Romantic Boys of the Edwardian Summer Holiday.” What was the story behind it?
HR: The collection I did before this was a 13 look compilation for Harry Styles, which was what kind of led me to this project. That entire collection was inspired by the summers I spent down at the seaside in England with my grandparents. All the men in my family are kind of men of the sea and I’ve always felt kind of like the odd one out. It’s sort of a play on my interpretation of what I would look like if I was to ever be come one these characters.
A look from a previous collection of the designer.
JA: What’s your design process like?
HR: I always start with a very strong character. Then I create a narrative around this persona and from there I dive into the design process through collaging, which is where I create a silhouette. It’s always a constant back and forth between collaging and working with the physical pieces as feel is very important to me in the creation of these characters. I end up doing a lot of hands on work while doing my sketching and collaging at the same time.
JA: People often label your work as androgynous, but do you consider yourself a menswear or womenswear designer?
HR: Even though I’m thinking about gender constantly when it comes to the physical design process I try not to imagine my characters as gendered. I imagine them more as fluid beings, it’s more about the body, the shapes, forms and the personality traits rather than all the labels.
So no, I wouldn’t place myself in either of those categories.
Singer Troye Sivan in a Harris Reed look
JA: If you could use one movie, a song, a poem or some type of media to define your work what would it be?
HR: It would surely be cross baby of the movies Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) and Orlando (1992) .
JA: When looking at your work, it’s noticeable that a lot of the pieces are quite similar to your personal style. Is your work a reflection of yourself?
HR: It’s quite funny because when I started designing, I noticed that the second I started making pieces that were for myself the response was much greater. I would definitely say that a lot of times my collections hold aspects of myself and my personality.
JA: Who is your work for?
HR: My work is for a very mixed group of people, from 16 year-old girls to 60 year old women. Everyone has a different perceptive on it: some people think it’s quite rock n roll, while some think it’s very tasteful and victorian like . It is for anyone who’s not afraid to dress up and understand that they’re going to spark conversation by wearing my pieces.
JA: I noticed when composing your look books and doing personal shoots that most of the models you use are black men. Was this intentional and why?
HR: I can never do anything for only the sake of being pretty or beautiful. I always have to be tackling issues that are important. For a short time in my life I did modelling and one of the things I noticed was the lack of diversity, so I always try to be as inclusive as possible. Also for me it’s more about the people I meet and their personalities. I would rather meet someone, get to know them and shoot them for my collection rather than just picking a random model from an agency.
Artiste Solange Knowles in a full look by Harris Reed
JA: Is a college education important for one wanting to be a designer ?
HR: It’s interesting because I’m obviously quite fortunate to have such great success before even completing university. However I’ve found CSM to be such an amazing experience. I look at the work I did a year ago and compare it to what I’m doing now and I see how I’ve experienced such enormous growth, and a lot of that was thanks to the professors and friends I’ve met here. So I think it’s good for growth. However I think there are some people who make it work without schooling . It just depends on the person. I would say it’s not mandatory, but it’s 100% beneficial if it’s within your means.
JA: What are some of the challenges you experience being a student who’s already in the spotlight?
HR: Finding the time to do everything is difficult. I’m a ‘yes’ person, I love to collaborate so the biggest challenge is knowing when to say no and understanding my limits.
JA: Can you tell me about a time that was scary for you?
HR: Moving to London from America for me was like coming out of a cocoon. When I got to London I was welcomed with such an accepting energy that pushed me to being more fluent and embrace who I was. One of the scariest moments for me was physically opening up and wearing these extravagant things that better represent me. Sporting these looks in public and worrying about what people will think. It was kinda just about that moment of physically coming out of a closet dressed in all these extravagant, decadent pieces.
JA: What would be the dream for your career ?
HR: I think it would be having a huge business that is completely gender fluid and which is giving back to the community. That’s successful in breaking down the fundamentals of the way fashion looks at gender and personally being a role model to people like myself.
“This is a challenge to where fashion is currently—a new feminine ideal,” says Kanye West, as his first adidas Originals collection – Yeezy Season 1 – launches around the world on 29th October.
Comprised of both voluminous and second-skin like proportions – the former generally on top, and the latter below – West reiterates the practicality he had in mind with these pieces, describing the easily interchangeable capsule collection as “solutions-based” and akin to Lego. Ultimately, he has, quite literally, aimed to create a series of uniform building blocks, from which his customers can construct a daily identity. “I don’t want the clothes to be the life,” he stresses. “I want the clothes to help the life.”
So what of the garments themselves? They are undoubtedly useful, bar perhaps the aforementioned body-suits, which although editorially striking, may be a little more tricksy to work into any typical circumstance that initially springs to mind. The inky, generously hooded shearling parkas are instantly desirable, as are the gnarled army surplus knits and cotton tanks in that perfect shade of smokey anthracite. But it’s the unisex, outsized sweaters, beautifully constructed yet rough around the edges, that you could really see yourself wearing forever.
West has been clever. He has put just enough of himself into this collaboration – hero pieces such as the camo separates and drop shouldered bomber jackets smack of recognition with “West: the brand” – to make it aspirational, yet left the collection canvas-like in it’s quality, so that customers can see themselves in it too, without having to try too hard.
The decision to have a mass release of the collaboration, as opposed to a staggered global drop seems an obvious one, especially when you consider the transient purposes West had in mind when designing. “I wanted something that felt like New York or Paris or Tokyo or Santa Barbara or Chicago—a worldliness and an ease.”
Rounding off the collection are a number of new footwear releases, the highly anticipated Yeezy Boosts 750 and 350 as well as the Yeezy 950 boots for men and platform snow boots for women. Roll on winter.
adidas Originals by Kanye West – Yeezy Season 1 is in stores now. Prices start from $130.
Claude Montana’s signature silhouette defined the age of excess. His was a New Look for the Eighties and Montana’s glamazons wore cinched-in waists, topped off by razor-sharp shoulders. It was a universe of bold colour, luxe leathers and power tailoring, where Montana reigned supreme. However the Nineties embrace of minimalism saw his vision without an audience, and in 1997 he filed for bankruptcy.
While the designer now lives quietly in Spain, his name retains its ability to evoke a decade of design. The Montana legacy has been compressed into a new book, written by the designer himself with the help of fashion journalist Marielle Cro.
Claude Montana looks at the principles and practices that underpinned his world. Punctuated throughout by catwalk images, sketches and tributes from former collaborators, including photographer Paolo Roversi, embroiderer François Lesage and fellow designer Alain Mikli.
With rumours that Montana could be lured back to designing under the right circumstances, we can only hope the book is less a eulogy, than the prelude to a restoration.
Claude Montana: Fashion Radical is available from Thames & Hudson, thamesandhudson.com
Images courtesy of Guy Marineau and Paolo Roversi.
Originally named Garter & Asp, an appellation merging a harmless snake with one that is poisonous, the Berlin-based design duo Don’t Shoot the Messengers (pictured below) create elegant yet subversively sexy feminine garments. “There is a sort of darkness that we look at,” says Canadian Jen Gilpin. Alongside her partner Kyle Callanan, she sums up their aesthetic as, “Geometric, molten and just a little bit rock and roll.” We likey.
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