Though we’ll never turn our back on indigo denim, lately we’ve been thinking more and more about the world of black denim. A lengthy discussion with leading denim authority and Self Edge co-founder Kiya Babzani on the three main modes of making black…
L’étudiante Bianca Luini, collectionne de jolies images et associe des clichés de pièces de grandes marques avec des visuels inspirants. Des juxtapositions du plus bel effet réunies sous le nom Where I See Fashion, jouant sur les similitudes, les couleurs et les formes dont une sélection est à découvrir dans la suite.
Jac Jagaciak in Dior Couture photographed by Patrick Demarchelier // Painting by Theo Altenberg
Valentin Yudashkin RTW Spring 2014 // Palace of Versailles by Maximillian Puhane
Alexander McQueen // Sleeping Swan by Nigel French
Editorial by Simon Lekias // Raspberry Coconut Ice by Ana Maria Ciolacu
KTZ Spring 2013 // Castle of Sammezzano Leccio in Reggello by Dan Raven
Julia Sarr Jamois street style 2013 // Painting by Eastwoodart
Gisele Bündchen in “Body Double” wearing Jean Paul Gaultier // Arc du Carrousel Paris by CKND
Ginta Lapina for Vogue US by Sharif Hamza // Ice cave in Iceland by Hsin-Ta Wu
Marchesa Wedding Dress // Smoke by Andrew Kim
D&G RTW Spring 2008 // Painting by Claude Monet
Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring 2005 // Landmannalaugar, Iceland
Alexander McQueen RTW Spring 2011 // Painting by Michele De Agostini
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: scientists are combining non-living chemicals to create materials with the properties of living organisms, says the creator of a self-repairing shoe made from protocells.
Shamees Aden. Copyright: Dezeen
Protocells, as the chemical cocktails are known, are made by mixing basic non-living molecules in lab conditions. These then combine to create substances that exhibit some of the characteristics of living cells: the ability to metabolise food, to move and to reproduce.
In this movie Dezeen filmed at the Wearable Futures conference in December, designer and materials researcher Shamees Aden explains how “scientists are now mixing together groups of chemicals [to make] them behave like living cells. They are able to reconfigure, they are able to adapt to light, pressure and heat.”
The synthetic production of living materials is so far limited to basic applications – modifying the behaviour of oil droplets in a water solution, for example – but Aden has developed a proposal that uses protocells to make self-regenerating soles for a pair of running shoes.
The Amoeba running shoes designed by Aden use protocells’ capabilities of responding to pressure, and inflates or deflates according to the texture of ground the wearer is running on to provide more or less cushioning.
Photocells, which have a limited life span, would be replenished after each run, explains Aden. “Your shoe box would be a vessel which would hold the [protocell] liquid inside. You could buy your protocell liquid and it would be dyed any colour you like and you would pour that in and as the shoe is rejuvenated the colours would emerge.”
The speculative project is the result of a collaboration with chemist Dr Michael Hanczyc of the Institute of Physics and Chemistry and the Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) in Denmark, who has worked extensively on protocells.
“At this point it is a speculative design project but it is grounded in real science and it could be in production by 2050,” says Aden.
Visualisation of protocells forming
This is the third movie from the two-day Wearable Futures conference that explored how smart materials and new technologies are helping to make wearable technology one of the most talked-about topics in the fields of design and technology.
Visualisation of protocell production
In the first movie, designer of Dita von Teese’s 3D-printed gown Francis Bitonti explained how advances in design software mean “materials are becoming media”. In the second, Suzanne Lee explained how she makes clothes “grown using bacteria.”
Fashion designer Christopher Kane’s Autumn Winter 2014 collection shown at London Fashion Week features outlined layers of fabric that overlap like fluttering sheets of paper.
London-based designer Christopher Kane used multiple sections of translucent silk to create patterns on dresses in his latest collection.
Black fabric was outlined with white stitching and vice versa, while a peach-coloured cloth was also defined by black edges.
The outlines created ripples across the outfits when layers flapped as models walked down the runway.
This effect was applied to thigh-length dresses with various shoulder straps and necklines.
A grey top with triangular black pieces that rippled across the front was paired with a skirt with light grey layers that splayed from one hip.
In a rectangle-shaped design, a black sheet covered white pieces that resembled pages of a book.
The collection also included dresses with ribbon-like sleeves that folded back and forth down the arms.
Kane graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins in 2006 and his eponymous label is now owned by French company Kering.
He presented the collection yesterday as part of London Fashion Week, which wraps up today.
Fashion brand Pringle of Scotland has incorporated laser-sintered nylon fabric into garments for its Autumn Winter 2014 collection, shown yesterday at London Fashion Week.
Pringle of Scotland collaborated with material scientist Richard Beckett to create a series of 3D-printed fabrics for the collection using selective laser sintering (SLS).
To produce textiles that could move like traditional cloths, Beckett chose specific machinery that could create the tiny nylon parts needed to keep the material flexible.
“I used an EOS Formiga P100 SLS system due to its ability to build at high definition, one of the few systems that would allow you to build such complex movable parts at this size,” Beckett told Dezeen.
The printed sections were then handwoven into the knitwear through small hooks on the underside or stitched on top of the wool.
Bands of the material formed cuffs for jackets while larger elements created diamond-shaped Argyle patterns across pullovers and sleeveless tops.
3D-printed garments have previously appeared in Haute Couture fashion collections by designers such as Iris van Herpen and a bespoke garment for Dita Von Teese, but Pringle of Scotland claims that this is the first time the technology has been used for ready to wear.
“I wanted to explore a move away from the more sculptural costume approach of such pieces, towards a more material, haptic-based approach,” said Pringle of Scotland head of design Massimo Nicosia.
The Autumm Winter 2014 collection was presented during this season’s London Fashion Week, which concludes tomorrow.
A taste of Kvadrat/Raf Simons, which arrives at retail in April. (Photos from left: Anne Collier, Kvadrat)
It’s easy to forget, now that he has ascended to the creative helm of Dior, that Raf Simons began his career as a promising young furniture designer. He returns to his roots with a new range of textiles, cushions, and throws created in collaboration with Kvadrat. Simons looked to his beloved mid-century masters, including Jean Royère, Pierre Jeanneret, Finn Juhl, and Hans Wegner, for textured elements, including a woven mohair reminiscent of sheepskin, speckled boucles, and a fur-like textile. Others reimagine the work of the late Swedish textile designer Fanny Aronsen.
And while Simons used many of the textiles in his fall/winter 2014 menswear collection, for which he teamed with artist Sterling Ruby, the Kvadrat collection was conceived with interiors in mind. “We are making fabrics that are like a blank canvas for designers,” said Simons in a statement issued today. “They are waiting for input from the furniture designers—we don’t control the design they will use the textiles for, so we try to leave it very open; these fabrics should be multifunctional.”
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.
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.
Speaking about the development of the dress at the Wearable Futures conference in London in December, Bitonti says that developments in computer-based design and 3D printing mean that designers are no longer limited by their knowledge of materials.
“The separation between what you can simulate and what you can physically model is gone”, claims Bitonti, founder of New York luxury fashion studio Francis Bitonti Studio.
Francis Bitonti with Dita von Teese wearing the 3D-printed dress he and Michael Schmidt created for her
Von Teese premiered the 3D-printed dress designed by Bitonti and designer Michael Schmidt at the Ace Hotel in New York in March last year and it became one of the most talked-about fashion stories of the year.
“One of the things we’ve been noticing is that materials are becoming media. I’m not operating on materials, I’m operating on animations, I’m operating on video, I’m operating on pixels and polygons. [The design process] is a lot closer to creating a hollywood film than it is making an aluminium cylinder,” says Bitonti.
Modelling the Dita von Teese dress
Possibilities are now limited by the designer’s imagination rather than material constraints, Bitonti says. “What I’m finding every day is that I can make anything I can draw. And I can make something behave any way I can imagine it behaving. The gap closes every day.”
Modelling the Dita von Teese dress by Francis Bitonti
Prior to launching Francis Bitonti Studio, Bitonti trained as an architect. He says this background proved useful when designing the figure-hugging dress for the American model and burlesque dancer Dita von Teese.
Manufacturing one of the pieces of the Dita von Teese dress
“I found that developing a second skin for the body wasn’t really that much different from thinking about a building facade. It’s about breaking up shapes in pretty much the same way,” he says.
The seamless dress, which he developed last year, was made out of 3000 unique moving parts made using selective laser sintering (SLS), where material is built up in layers from plastic powder fused together with a laser.
Manufacturing one of the pieces of the Dita von Teese dress
The two-day Wearable Futures conference explored how smart materials and new technologies are helping to make wearable technology one of the most talked-about topics in the fields of design and technology.
Detail of the DIta von Teese dress
Bitonti is not the only designer exploring the fashion possibilities of 3D-printing.
There’s more to Fashion Week than what’s draped across the models or the attendees at runway shows. With an ever-crowding competitive schedule, more brands have begun to embrace innovation in presentations—like last season’s show-stopping debut from Opening Ceremony. No longer just a stroll down the catwalk; performance and theatrics…
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