London has been recognized as a centre for recruiting new fashion talents for the past few decades with worldly-acclaimed designers like: John Galliano, Alexander Mc - Queen, Hussein Chalayan, among many others. Skimming through the Spring collections last week, we noticed a handful of new talents. Some have dedicated the past twenty years of their life to fashion, while others have only recently presented their debut collection. Often from mixed cultural backgrounds, and at ease in London’s cosmopolitan atmosphere, some of them have completed a MA in either Womenswear or Menswear at the prestigious Central St. Martins College of Art and Design.
Born in Hong Kong and of Portuguese descent, John Rocha studied fashion in London in the 1970’s before moving to Dublin were he has lived ever since. He has been involved in fashion, interior design and architecture, besides launching his “organically inspired jewelry” in 2002. That same year, he received a ‘Commander of the British Empire’ (CBE) from Her Majesty The Queen, for his lifelong commitment to fashion. This season, Rocha’s collection conveyed a poetic etherealness mixed with a ‘charming oddness’. Mockingly conventional classical tailoring features: buttoned-up collars and oversized straight lines accentuated the playful sentiment of being a little more than ‘just what they ought to be’. Tints of tobacco, almond, umber, egg blue, old rose, lichen green and sunset orange, but also black and white, added an element of surprise to this very modern collection, recalling artist Sean Scully’s blocks of ‘colourful candies’ in his painting “Wall of Light Summer”. A bouquet of ruffles on the models’ head and a pair of retro wooden shoes expressed tenderness for treasured possessions that have ‘lived’ through time.
Young Greek-Austrian designer Marios Schwab lives and works in London where he launched his label in 2005. After having completed a BA at Esmod Berlin, he moved to London to pursue a MA in Womenswear at Central St. Martins, from which he graduated in 2003. Schwab has been presenting his collections at London Fashion Week since Spring/ - Summer 2006. 2006 was an especially important year, as he was awarded Best New Designer at the British Fashion Awards. Wellknown for his mix-matching of textiles, Schwab’s Spring 2010 collection consisted in layering three to four fabrics, so that they ‘continue’ one another, whilst covering most of the body, only to accentuate certain chosen features of the original female form by revealing them. This effect was mainly achieved by mixing tightly tailored pieces such as the top of a shirt, just until the bust, with loose, flowing ones like the softly curved skirts. With stiff and soft fabrics in different textures and either strongly complementary or strongly contrasting hues of bronze, midnight blue, lilac, black, satin pink and aubergine, he assembled the elements of traditional tailoring that best optically flatter the female shape. Schwab’s fascination for and research on unconventional approaches to silhouettes is as daring as it is promising.
Austrian-Italian designer Peter Pilotto and his partner Christopher De Vos, who is Belgian-Peruvian, met while studying at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. In 2008, their label, Peter Pilotto, was accredited as one out of ‘Ten Most Promising New Talents’. The design duo celebrated its favourite prints in soft turquoises, pencil-coloured yellow, marmalade red, faint silver, deep grey and gold. The subtle bold-coloured prints gave a modern touch to classically refined jackets and coats, as they accentuated the sophisticated draping– their prints are never randomly placed on the silhouette. Instead, irregular spots of colour are used to create an illusion of depth, when necessary. Peter Pilotto’s mastery of prints combined with pleasant, ageless and timeless forms, define this truly fantastic collection.
Danish designer Marcus Wilmont and his partner Maki Aminaka Lofvander, who is Swedish- Japanese, are the designers behind the Aminaka Wilmont label. Wilmont studied Menswear at Central St. Martins and earned the ‘Collection of the Year’ award at the International Talent Support Competition in Italy. Aminaka Lofvander graduated from the University of Boras, Sweden, in Womenswear. The two met whilst working at Robert Carey William’s studio and launched their own label in 2006. Aminaka Wilmont envisioned next spring with silky halftinted prints in pinks, white, caramel and pale blues. Sensual, effortlessly draped fabrics and animal- like hair decorations were contrasted by black leather-stitched outfits, towards the end of the collection, demonstrating an eccentric interpretation of lively science fiction motifs, with a sharp, masculine dominating force.
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