Hasta La Ideas

Silicon details and latex panels featured in Royal College of Art graduate Xiao Li’s first London Fashion Week show.

Xiao Li‘s Autumn Winter 2014 collection included sections of latex that were moulded against knitwear to create texture.

Bumpy silicon strips were used around cuffs, necklines and hems, as well as to highlight pockets and seams.

Garments made from meshed sports material included bomber-style jackets and skirts. The porous fabric was also formed into billowing sleeves.

The icy palette of white and powder blue was influenced by the landscape of Iceland.

“Crisp shades of blue are injected onto a cool of solitary white base and silhouettes are accented with chalky forms of silicon,” said the designer.

A darker blue was used to create a stiff moulded top and a two-piece outfit with hems that appeared to be frosted.

Panels of latex have been created in shapes traditionally found in denim pieces, such as the top of a pair of dungarees and chunky pockets fronts.

Li was presented the Merit Award at the Fashion Scout talent showcase, which took place during London Fashion Week earlier this month.

She graduated from London’s Royal College of Art last year and showed plump pastel silicone garments moulded from knitwear as part of her final collection.

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Autumn Winter 2014 collection appeared first on Dezeen.

Alchemist Lauren Bowker applied heat-sensitive ink to a sculptural leather garment and used fire to alter its colour during a presentation for her company The Unseen (+ movie).

Coinciding with London Fashion Week earlier this month, Bowker’s design house The Unseen debuted a series of garments embedded with her colour-changing ink at an event in the Dead House – a series of vaulted passages beneath Somerset House where her studio is located.

She created a giant black headdress made from overlapping layers of hand-stitched leather that engulfed the wearer like a shell, completely covering the head and extending down past the hips.

During the presentation, a figure wearing this headdress was lead down a tunnel and positioned beneath a spotlight. Large flames erupted around the garment as wicks that protruded from the body were lit in unison.

As the heat from the fire lapped the material, peacock-tail colours began to emerge and disperse across the surface. When the flames died down, the green and purple tones remained on the material as the model was lead back into the depths of the underground vaults.

The collection also included garments worn over the torso that react to the movement of air, changing colour as environmental conditions shift in varying climates and when people come close or walk past.

“Seasonally each piece exhibits different tones of colour,” Bowker told Dezeen. “The summer environment will create a brightly coloured jacket that will dull in the wind to become black again, whereas in the winter the pieces are black until the wind hits them then revealing the colour shift.”

Made in a similar layered style to the larger heat-responsive piece, these designs were displayed on models in alcoves along the subterranean tunnels.

“The fins in each jacket are shaped and designed to create turbulence trips within the wind – triggering the colour-change response,” said Bowker.

She has previously applied different versions of her reactive inks to feathered garments that are sensitive to light.

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headdress by Lauren Bowker appeared first on Dezeen.

L’agence Bolon a lancé sa collection de revêtement de sol appelé « Silence » en collaboration avec le chorégraphe Alexander Ekman. Ils ont réalisé cette vidéo dans laquelle la musique est faite par les pas des danseurs et le bruit des machines. Une belle chorégraphie, où le sol se tisse au fur et à mesure.

Uruguayan designers Mercedes Arocena and Lucía Benítez created this collection of garments entirely using wool sourced from their native country.

Arocena and Benítez, who studied together at the Escuela Universitaria de Diseño in Montevideo, Uruguay, made their Dominga collection solely from local wool as a nod to the material’s historical use in the country.

“Dominga comes as a result of an experimental investigation process that begins with the wool – a natural, sustainable and warm fibre that is part of our history and our culture,” said the designers.

“We intended to intervene as far as we could, on the transformation process of the material, starting from the raw wool to the finished garment,” they added.

Various craft techniques such as felting and embroidery were employed while making the pieces by hand. The duo reinterpreted traditional garments worn by gauchos – farmers that live and work in rural areas of South America.

A ruana – a blanket worn over the shoulders – has been drawn in at the waist by a woven belt with a frayed skirt-like hem. A belt is also incorporated into a patterned poncho, fed through holes around the midriff to give the garment more shape.

Vertical folds of fabric are layered into a shin-length skirt as a twist on a chiripá, traditionally a cross between a skirt and trousers. Squares of material are staggered on top of each other to form the large flared bottom of a dress, which also features oversized half-length sleeves.

Details on the garments were created by platting strands of the material into lengths that were stitched onto the clothes or formed into lasso-like loops.

The collection was awarded at the Mittelmoda fashion contest in Italy last November.

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by Mercedes Arocena and Lucía Benítez appeared first on Dezeen.

The fibrous metallic garments in Central Saint Martins graduate Graham Fan’s London Fashion Week collection are reminiscent of wire brushes used for cleaning the dishes.

MA Fashion graduate Graham Fan’s initial material experiments for his final collection were influenced by Thomas Heatherwick’s woven metal facade at Guy’s Hospital in London.

“As I began working on this collection, I created a piece of woven plastic textile inspired by the exterior of [Heatherwick’s] Boiler Suit,” he told Dezeen.

“I then looked into various traditional basketry and weaving sources, hoping to further craft some new textiles with different materials,” he added.

Metallic plastic cords were handwoven unevenly to create patterns for the jackets, tops and dresses, plus skirts with 1950s shapes. The threads loop back on themselves to form turtlenecks, cuffs and hems.

Fan incorporated mohair, leather strips and fish wire into some sections of the weave to add texture.

“Elastic fish wire was woven through the materials horizontally and vertically in order to create the uneven shimmering surface,” said Fan.

Fan showed the collection during the Central Saint Martins show at Somerset House last Friday, which took place as part of London Fashion Week.

Fellow graduate Ondrej Adamek’s range featured huge satin flowers that conceal the faces of models. Photographs are courtesy of Catwalking.com.

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evokes metallic pan scourers appeared first on Dezeen.