Hasta La Ideas

Fashion designer Sadie Williams has heat-pressed neoprene to create this collection of metallic sci-fi garments, which was nominated for Designs of the Year 2014 earlier this week.

Sadie Williams created the embossed effects on the dresses in her Totemic collection by sandwiching layers of neoprene, more commonly used for wetsuits, between metallic yarns and tracksuit material.

Williams chose the sparkly yet structured materials after seeing old images of Harley Davidson riders and Japanese bikers who rode glittery motorcycles.

“I really love the graphic, masculine print arrangement found in biker clothing, helmets and panelled satin racing vests,” said Williams. “I incorporated leather elements into my collection as a nod to bikers.”

The simple silhouettes of the dresses were influenced by 1960s designers Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges and references from gowns by Italian designer Valentino are visible in the length and dropped waists.

Bonding the metallic yarns to the tracksuit fabric removed the need for lining and also gave the textile a stiff quality.

Leather panels and patches were either sewn into the dresses or appliquéd on top.

Prints were added on top using hand collaged heat-transfer papers and a dye-sublimation printer, which also employs heat to transfer colours to textiles.

Sadie Williams created the garments while studying on Central Saint Martins‘s MA Fashion course, which she graduated from last year.

The collection is nominated in the Fashion category for this year’s Designs of the Year awards organised by London’s Design Museum. Two of her pieces will go on display at the museum from 26 March as part of the dedicated exhibition.

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neoprene by Sadie Williams appeared first on Dezeen.

Spiny translucent 3D-printed collars were paired with magnetic dresses and shoes that looks like tree roots in Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen’s latest haute couture collection.

Iris van Herpen‘s Wilderness Embodied collection included dresses and jewellery that combine 3D-printing technology and natural forms.

“My Wilderness collection explores the wilderness that we as human have inside us as well as the wilderness in nature,” she told Dezeen.

Pieces that wrapped around the length of the neck and extended down the chest were decorated with pointy globules tinted purple, blue and pink colours.

These elements were repeated in symmetrical patterns on the see-through layers worn over neutral dresses.

The collars and spiky elements on the dresses were designed in collaboration with architect Isaie Bloch and 3D-printed with additive manufacturing company Materialise.

This season Van Herpen also worked with designer Jólan van der Wiel to create a pair of dresses grown using magnets – find out more about them in our previous story.

“Natural forces like magnetism that are essential to life inspired me to not only use manmade techniques like 3D printing, but to combine technology with the creativity and power of nature itself,” Van Herpen said.

Shown in Paris last month, the Autumn Winter 2013 collection also featured 3D-printed shoes that look like a tangle of roots designed with United Nude founder Rem D Koolhaas and printed by Stratasys.

We’ve featured a few of Van Herpen’s previous collections that include 3D printing and interviewed the fashion designer for our one-off magazine Print Shift, during which she talked about how these technologies could transform the fashion industry.

Recently we posted a collection of 3D-printed jewellery by Dorry Hsu, inspired by her fear of insects.

See more design by Iris van Herpen »
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Read on for more information sent to us by van Herpen:

Nature is wild. Generated by powerful forces. It proliferates by creating startling beauty.

For her fifth collection as an invited member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, Iris van Herpen focuses on the forces of nature, with a back and forth between innovation and craftsmanship. Beyond simple visual inspiration, this wonder of the natural world forms the basis of wild experimentation.

With the help of artists, scientists and architects, Iris van Herpen explores the intricacies of these forces trough the medium of fashion, and the sensitive poetics that have long characterised her aesthetic vocabulary.

Through her collaboration with artist Jolan van der Wiel, who has spent several years pondering the possibilities of magnetism, they have created dresses whose very forms are generated by the phenomenon of attraction and repulsion.

Iris van Herpen draws equally upon the life force that pulses through the sculptures of David Altmejd. His wild organic forms derived from the regenerative processes of nature have greatly inspired Wilderness Embodied.

She proposes to reach this wild nature freedom into the human body and soul. The human spirit is forged of this same vital energy, coursing and erupting through the limits of the body in such resplendent displays of extreme tradition or technology as piercings, scarification or surgery.

This wild(er)ness of the human body, as unchecked as it is intimate, is one that the designer has sought to reveal the collection.Balancing respect for the traditions of atelier craftsmanship, with each garment subject to individual handwork, Iris van Herpen has nonetheless broadened the horizons of her domain: materials and processes.

With architect Isaie Bloch and Materialise she continues to develop the innovative 3D-printed dresses, which she was the first to present in both static and flexible forms. On the one hand, her long-term collaboration with Canadian architect Philip Beesley and, on the other had, her partnership with United Nude’s Rem D. Koolhaas and Stratasys which has led to a line of shoes, help to spread the spirit of the collection.

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by Iris van Herpen appeared first on Dezeen.

Angular textured garments are accessorised with concrete cuffs in the Autumn Winter 2013 collection by Ukrainian fashion brand DZHUS.

DZHUS founder Irina Dzhus created geometric shapes from stiff materials to exaggerate silhouettes across the shoulders.

“I analysed shapes and structures of monumental constructions and tried my best to embody their principles in the silhouettes and cut of my designs,” Dzhus told Dezeen.

A floor-length white dress with a high neck is detailed with two pleats at the front, which soften as they flare out down the length of the garment.

Other dresses in metallic fabric have straight profiles, though can be cinched at the waist by a wide grey belt in the same material.

Crinkled paper-like material is folded into shapes to create an effect similar to origami.

“I chose textiles that show strong association with building materials and atmosphere,” said Dzhus. “I used wrinkled and metallic fabrics, net, glimmering coppery silk, smoky chiffon and other peculiarly textured surfaces.”

One triangular top has a structured collar and waistband but loose sleeves so movement isn’t restricted. It is worn with a long blue pleated skirt.

A light grey tunic with a flat collar is cut into by darker diamond-shaped shoulder pieces and has gap in the front of the skirt.

Colours range from shades of rust and grey to deep orange and blue. Zips and square buttons provide details.

The square and round chunky concrete bracelets were made in collaboration with MEL Design.

Named Overground, the collection is intended to reference urban forms and industrial objects.

“This word makes an ironic analogy with ‘underground’ as a creative conception, and at the same time it is an eloquent statement about the grandiose idea of the collection glorifying sublime industrial objects,” said Dzhus.

The range was shown at Ukrainian Fashion Week and Kiev Fashion Days Showroom earlier this year. Photography is by Olga Nepravda.

Our coverage of Autumn Winter 2013 fashion collections includes Aina Beck’s foil-printed attire and Jaimee McKenna’s pleated blue garments.

See more collections from Autumn Winter 2013 »
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Here is some more information from the designer:

DZHUS conceptual wear brand was founded in 2010 by a Ukrainian designer Irina Dzhus who had graduated from Kiev National University of Technologies and Design and had already worked as a fashion stylist for apparel, accessories and cosmetics campaigns as well as collaborated with celebrities.

The brand’s design concept is based on interaction and transformation of construction modules in order to create new aesthetics of the form – avant-garde and virtually archetypical at the same time, categoric but variable.

An urbanistic Autumn Winter 2013 collection, Overground, was demonstrated at Ukrainian Fashion Week New Names Show and Mercedes-Benz Kiev Fashion Days Showroom.

Architectonical design of the collection interprets monumental structure of industrial objects. Style of the garments glorifies sublime technocratic aesthetics and functionalist utilitarian constructions.

High quality of specifically textured fabrics equalises commercial aspect of the pieces with their grandiose idea.

DZHUS advertising campaign is created by fashion photographer Olga Nepravda. Monolithic concrete cuffs were manufactured in collaboration with MEL Design.

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by DZHUS appeared first on Dezeen.

Layers of blue fabric pleated into origami-like patterns bounced down the catwalk at Central Saint Martins graduate Jaimee McKenna’s Autumn Winter 2013 show.

Knitted from lambswool, the fabric were felted to create a more rigid material that could be creased into tessellating pleats in various styles.

“I found an image from a 1950s Vogue of an elaborate pleated skirt that had such structure and presence,” McKenna told Dezeen. “I then developed my own felt that would hold its structure but still have a beautiful drape once it was pleated.”

The pleating allowed clothes to concertina when the models walked, creating movement through each of the layers.

The blue colour used for the entire collection was inspired by an ultramarine shade first mixed by post-war French artist Yves Klein.

A couple of garments were dip-dyed in a darker hue, influenced by swatches McKenna experimented with during her first year of study.

Extra bands of folded material formed chunky armbands or belts, with tights and shoes matching the dresses.

As part of the same Central Saint Martins graduate show at London Fashion Week earlier this year, Eilish Macintosh presented outfits tied up with knotted lengths of rope.

See all the collections we’ve featured from Autumn Winter 2013 »
See all our stories about fashion »

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by Jaimee McKenna appeared first on Dezeen.

London design studio Sibling continued their fixation on enormous knitted accessories in their Autumn Winter 2013 menswear show, titled Please Kill Me.

Sibling created giant knitted headgear, scarves and mittens for their range shown during London Collections: Men, the British capital’s dedicated menswear event which took place earlier this year.

Colourful crocheted flowers that spell out the collection’s title and a light blue hat brim provide the only colour in the otherwise all-black opening look.

Baby blue continues in the next four outfits, most prominently as a furry scoop neck jumper with a knitted hem and collar that wraps over a huge hat.

The colour is then paired with black in a geometric pattern of diamonds and stripes, employed on a jumper in one instance, then on cropped trousers and an extra-long scarf in the next.

Patterns become more intense as the blue is replaced by pink, reccuring on leggings, T-shirts, cardigans and trousers.

A deconstructed cable-knit pullover provides the most extreme example of Sibling’s signature use of chunky knitwear.

The infantile colours are overtaken by bright red in the final third of the show, with leopard print patterns used on a top, for a full outfit and then trousers respectively.

Snoods cover the shoulders and tuck under or stretch over immense hats.

The jumper in the final outfit pictures a bird, a heart and a banner with the word “hell” written across it, embroidered on a grey front panel and embellished with black fur on the sides and shoulders.

Furry garments are scattered throughout the collection in block colours and every outfit features an element of black, worn with classic Converse high-tops.

The designers debuted their womenswear collection during London Fashion Week last month.

We’ve also featured Sruli Recht’s menswear collection from this season that included wooden clothes.

See all our stories about Autumn Winter 2013 collections »
See all our stories about fashion »

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by Sibling appeared first on Dezeen.