“A KISS SEEMED LIKE THE BEST WAY TO SHOW A CONNECTION, AND PASS ON THIS FEELING OF INTIMACY.”
In your press release it says that the SS17 collection focuses on the concept of walls as something that seems to protects us, but similarly also prevents us from making a connection. How exactly have you translated this concept into your work?
I looked at the concept of walls from a few different perspectives. In the physical sense, looking at images of people near large structures, images of walls built as borders within countries. In the conceptual sense, exploring the concept of emotional walls and how to bring them down.
The main technique creating the clothes was to use pleats to create a few layers on certain areas, reinforcing the fabric. While in the same surface I was dissolving those pleats; creating a vast clean surface, to create this collapsible garment, that looks strong and stiff in parts and dissolves into more abstract shapes in other parts.
You have created a beautiful video of two men kissing while wearing a black iteration of the interconnected jacket from you previous collection. How does this relate back to your concept of walls and its effects on your methods of making connections?
The video was made as a research piece for the current collection. This was part of the concept of taking down a wall. I kept looking at an image from AW15 and thought that, although the models’ jackets are connected, they seem quite far apart, facing the camera, away from each other. I wondered: how can I break down that wall between them, and make them connect? A kiss seemed like the best way to show a connection, and pass on this feeling of intimacy.