“Why make user-friendly clothes? Because people don’t know how to look after a garment anymore—how to iron properly or fold pieces—which is why they throw stuff away before they need to,” says designer Ninna Berger, one…
Continue Reading…
London College of Fashion graduate Barbora Veselá has layered-up leftover scraps of leather to create striations based on rock formations on the surface of these shoes (+ movie).
Barbora Veselá looked to the patterns of eroded sedimentary rocks at the Prokopské údolí nature reserve in the Czech Republic when creating her Geology of Shoes footwear.
“The project takes inspiration from sediment layers and from effects of erosive processes in nature as well as from traditional shoe making techniques,” said Veselá.
By overlapping spare strips of leather suede-side-up around a traditional last, she built up the shape of the shoes piece by piece.
Veselá then sanded down the scraps to create the final forms and reveal the rippled layers. As the odds and ends of material are always different shapes, each shoe is unique.
The colours of the stripes were influenced by shaded contours found on old geological maps. The footwear formed Veselá’s final project at Cordwainers College, part of the London College of Fashion.
Striations also feature in Zaha Hadid’s chrome-plated shoes with cantilevered heels for United Nude and we recently compiled a roundup of our stories about strata in architecture and design.
Film and photography are by Petr Krejčí.
The post Geology of Shoes by
Barbora Veselá appeared first on Dezeen.
Since its founding in 2009, design studio Patternity has believed that nurturing a shared awareness of life’s patterns will help every person to feel more connected to a greater whole, changing the way they engage with…
Continue Reading…
Dutch Design Week 2013: from synthetic biology to 3D printing, technologies that could signal the future of fashion are demonstrated in garments and accessories at an exhibition in Eindhoven (+ slideshow).
For the Modebelofte 2013 Future Fashions exhibition, Eindhoven fashion store You Are Here and Amsterdam agency Glamcult Studio collaborated to select young fashion designers who have worked with technologists, to create experimental new materials or recycle old ones.
“We tried to make it about technology and innovation, as well as handcraft,” curator Ellen Albers of You Are Here told Dezeen.
The range of projects on display was curated to show how different technologies can be applied to fashion design and textiles, plus adapted for other applications.
“[The exhibition is] an examination of what these new techniques can do for us, and how can we bring designers and companies together so that they can use the techniques for other kinds of things,” said Albers.
Items on displays are split into two groups, one on each floor of a dilapidated former fire commander’s house.
The ground floor contains pieces categorised as Revolutionary Innovations, which were created using processes such as 3D printing, laser cutting and moulding techniques.
These include body adornments based on exaggerated animal skeletons moulded from fibreglass, resin and silcone by Ana Rajcevic.
Cat Potter used 3D scanning technology to accurately map the contours of the foot to create the shape of the inners for her chunky wooden shoes, which clamp around the wearer’s feet.
Royal College of Art graduate Maiko Takeda’s prickly accessories made from hundreds of acrylic spikes are shown along with her classmate Xiao Li’s plump pastel silicone garments moulded from knitwear.
On the first floor, the Hyper Crafts section displays exaggerated uses of traditional techniques such as pleating, knitting, embroidery and woodworking.
Jaimee McKenna’s fully pleated Yves Klein blue garments and South Korean designer Minju Kim’s clothes that feature melted, knotted and twisted rubber demonstrate these.
Barkfur, a synthetically-created biomaterial, is used by Danish designer Laerke Hooge Andersen to suggest how we could grow clothing directly onto the body in the future.
All the designers graduated in the last five years from institutions across Europe including the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins in London, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
This year’s Dutch Design Week also featured a collection of heavy-duty garments made from tarpaulin and an exhibition of African-inspired textile prints.
The top prize at the Dutch Design Awards 2013 was awarded to Iris van Herpen’s Voltage fashion collection, which includes 3D-printed garments. Future Fashions and Dutch Design Week continue until 27 October.
The post Future Fashions exhibition by You Are Here
and Glamcult Studio appeared first on Dezeen.
Connu sous le pseudonyme de Grand Chamaco, cet illustrateur mexicain propose des créations de « character-design » du plus bel effet. Avec sa dernière série Mucho Macho, il compose des personnages loufoques et colorées modélisées en 3D à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.
Blow, studio de design fondé à Hong Kong en 2010 par Ken Lo, a récemment proposé dans les rues commerçantes de la ville chinoise, une installation étonnante pensée pour promouvoir cette Fashion Walk, symbolisant ce quartier en vogue. Des éléments visuels intéressants, à découvrir en images dans la suite.
Dutch Design Week 2013: a Dutch fashion textile brand that has a huge following in Africa but which is virtually unknown in Europe has announced a series of collaborations with contemporary designers (+ interview + slideshow).
Vlisco, a 167-year-old company that produces “grande, grotesque, outspoken” hand-printed textiles, staged an exhibition called Vlisco Unfolded exhibition in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week, presenting its new collection, archive material and its company history as well as a one-off print produced in collaboration with Studio Job.
Vlisco’s creative director Roger Gerards said the collaboration with Studio Job was the first in series of projects with external designers. “We want to do more and more,” he told Dezeen. “There is a list of designers we are going to work with.”
Vlisco, based in Helmond close to Eindhoven, employs 800 people and has an in-house design team of 50 people, yet is barely known in the Netherlands.
“There’s a huge contradiction between how the brand is perceived in west Africa and how it’s perceived here,” said Gerards. “[But] I don’t mind that much that people don’t know us here. There are 400 million people living in west and central Africa and we are world famous there. You see people wearing us everywhere.”
Vlisco was founded in 1846 and its signature fabrics, made using a 21-stage process involving wax-based batik techniques, soon found favour in Africa, where they were bartered by Dutch traders en route to Indonesia, which was the intended market.
The company started to develop bold, colourful prints for African customers and today has a symbiotic relationship with the region, where its products have become part of local folklore.
“In west Africa we’re more than just design; we’re also [part of the] culture,” said Gerards. “People claim and adopt our products. When we have a fashion show in a city such as Lagos it’s a huge event.”
Vlisco, together with fabric brands it owns in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, produced 65 million yards of fabric in 2012. Its key markets are Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as central and west African customers in major cities around the world.
The Vlisco Group, which employs 2,700 people worldwide, was bought in 2010 by British investment group Actis, which plans to help the brand double its business by 2015. It had a turnover of €225 million in 2011, an increase of 20% on the previous year.
The Vlisco Unfolded exhibition tells the story of the company and presents its products to the international design community for the first time.
Here’s the transcript of the interview with Vlisco’s creative director Roger Gerards:
Marcus Fairs: What is Vlisco?
Roger Gerards: Vlisco is a design brand based in this area of Eindhoven. We make textiles for west and central Africans living around the world. Besides the design we also manufacture in Holland. We have 800 people making our textiles.
Marcus Fairs: How did the company start?
Roger Gerards: More than 160 years ago a [Dutch] family bought a cotton printer. They had family in Indonesia and they started to make products for Indonesia using a batik technique. From 1900 on these products were also sold in west Africa and in this long relationship from then until today we’ve been making products for west African and central African consumers.
Marcus Fairs: How did the design of the fabrics evolve?
Roger Gerards: The imagery slowly changed from very Indonesian batik styles to our current DNA, which is very outspoken drawings and very bold colours which we developed ourselves. The product is the result of a lot connections, history and craft. Until today we still work with the wax batik technique, and we are the only company in the world doing that.
Marcus Fairs: Describe how the company is perceived in Africa.
Roger Gerards: What’s beautiful about the Vlisco brand is that in west Africa we’re more than just design; we’re also [part of the] culture. People claim and adopt our products. When we have a fashion show in a city such as Lagos it’s a huge event. People fly in from Canada, Dubai, all Nigerians from the whole world want to see the Vlisco fashion show. I always feel New York better in Lagos than in New York.
Marcus Fairs: It’s strange that you’re so unknown in Europe. Does that bother you?
Roger Gerards: There’s a huge contradiction between how the brand is perceived in west Africa and how it’s perceived here. I don’t mind that much that people don’t know us here. There are 400 million people living in west and central Africa and we are world famous there. You see people wearing us everywhere.
Marcus Fairs: Who designs the fabrics?
Roger Gerards: An important part of the company is that we have our own design department. We train our own designers because the technique and the DNA is so exceptional, you can’t compare it with other companies. We have to train our own designers. So we have 20 textile designers from around the world and we have 30 people assisting them. Besides that in the Netherlands we have 700 people working in manufacturing.
Marcus Fairs: How are the fabrics made?
Roger Gerards: The manufacturing process is quite long. It takes 21 steps to make the product, and it takes two weeks from when the white cloth enters the factory to when it’s finished.
Marcus Fairs: You said this would be the “first and last” time you’ll exhibit at Dutch Design Week. Why are you doing it?
Roger Gerards: There are several reasons. Most importantly because we are in this area. People know Dutch design from the past, like Rietveld, very clean, very sober and very reflective. We are very outspoken, decorative – and we’re Dutch design. It’s totally made in a Dutch environment. We developed a new brand strategy in the last few years and we wanted to express that we are happy with the results. We are really growing a lot because of it and we’re doing a lot of design developments and collaborations and I want to share this with the Dutch Design Week audience.
Marcus Fairs: Why have you collaborated with Studio Job on a limited-edition print?
Roger Gerards: I wanted to work with Studio Job because their design language and outspokenness and I feel a big concoction between what we are doing and what they are doing. All the fabrics that are worn by west Africans, they are very grande, very grotesque, very outspoken. It’s about couture and having presence. I think Studio Job is also very iconic and outspoken. As we both are Dutch designers it’s very good to make this connection. We made a limited edition fabric for this occasion but also he is using our fabrics for projects he is doing.
Marcus Fairs: Will you do more collaborations with contemporary designers?
Roger Gerards: Yes we want to do more and more. There is a list of designers we are going to work with.
The post Fashion fabric brand Vlisco to work
with “a list of designers” appeared first on Dezeen.
Dutch Design Week 2013: Dutch designer Elisa van Joolen has taken left over sample shoes from sports brand Nike and turned them inside-out to create new footwear (+ slideshow).
Elisa van Joolen contacted Nike and acquired its sample stock from previous seasons that would have been disposed of otherwise.
She then recycles the sneakers and creates new designs by cutting off the bottoms, turning the material inside out and stitching on bases of cheap sandals.
“I emphasise the potential of the depreciated samples and give them a new life,” said Van Joolen.
Inverting the shoes removes any branding across the design, plus reveals different colours and graphics from the internal parts.
Elastic straps that hold the tongue in place create stripes down the sides of the shoes and the “sample not for resale” text printed on the inner forms graphics toward the back.
Van Joolen uses the soles cut from the shoes to make flip-flops, punching holes in them and threading laces through so they act like straps.
The project was shortlisted in the fashion section of the Product category at this year’s Dutch Design Awards, which was won by Iris van Herpen’s Voltage collection.
“Van Joolen gives a new meaning to recycling,” said the jury. “With this collection she kicks in the shins of international footwear brands and shows them that recycling can go hand in hand with a nice product. It is not often that such a good story is converted to an interesting result.”
Footwear alleged to be made from bio-engineered stingray skin was also nominated for the 2013 awards. All shortlisted products are on show in Eindhoven this week as part of Dutch Design Week.
The post Invert Footwear by
Elisa van Joolen appeared first on Dezeen.
Barbora Veselá est une talentueuse créatrice et conceptrice de chaussures diplômée de la London College of Fashion. Avec cette superbe vidéo « Geology of Shoes » réalisée par Petr Krejčí, l’artiste dévoile les grandes étapes de la conception d’une paire de chaussures de façon artisanale.
This fashion collection made of heavy-duty black tarpaulin by graduate designer Martijn Van Strien is on show at Design Academy Eindhoven as part of Dutch Design Week, which kicked off yesterday.
Martijn Van Strien made each garment in his Dystopian Brutalist Outerwear collection from a single piece of tarpaulin, with only straight cuts and sealed seams so they are easy to manufacture.
“This series of coats explores the possibilities of combining very durable but inexpensive materials with fast and effective ways of putting them together,” said Van Strien.
“After the economic downfall and the decline of our society life on this planet will be tough and unsure,” he continued. “For people to survive they will need a protective outer layer which guards them from the harsh conditions of every day life.”
The Dutch designer explained that the basic shapes were inspired by Brutalist architecture. “It has an austere feeling due to the linear, fortresslike and blockish look,” he said. “The style comes off cold, distant, sober and mysterious.”
Martijn Van Strien was awarded the Keep and Eye Grant for his project at the opening of the show yesterday morning.
Images are by Imke Ligthart.
Here’s some more information from the Design Academy Eindhoven:
The future may be bright, but it might also be very dark, says Martijn van Strien. He considered the worst-case scenario and came up with the ultimate back-to-basics collection for harsh conditions.
Made with minimum cost and effort from a single piece of heavy-duty black tarpaulin, with only straight cuts and sealed seams. The styles are inspired by Brutalist architecture, giving this outerwear a linear, invincible look.
The design says it all: brace yourself and be safe.
The post Dystopian Brutalist Outerwear
by Martijn Van Strien appeared first on Dezeen.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
