In yesterday's post we went to Sweden; today let's fly somewhere else - to Germany - with the help of the students from the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design who created the knitwear samples showcased at Zegna Baruffa/Chiavazza's stand during June's Pitti Filati.
First of all, though, let's look at Zegna Baruffa's Autumn/Winter 2013-14 yarns and at the inspirations behind them. The starting point for the collection was a Walt Whitman quote, “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity”, combined with Leonardo da Vinci's “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
Simplicity is embodied in the main colour palette employed for the new collection: neutrals prevail, even though most of them are sweetened by a hint of red or blurred by a light grey gloss; blue tones are rich and deep and include cold and deep nuances verging towards purple.
Surface elaborations, embroideries, glittery elements and more colourful tones such as cherry, pink and plum, add bright dissonant notes and courageous combinations to the collection.
Together with the classic yarns – “Millennium”, “Today” and “Diamante” – the new collection also features “Antibes”, characterised by a slightly crumpled appearance and dedicated to all those designers who are into elegant and conceptual pieces, and “Babalight” for ultrasoft garments.
The range of sparkling yarns that already included “Sirio” and “Selene” will be completed next year with the introduction of a new one, “Mira” (NM 9000), while new colours have been added for one of the most successful series of yarns (both with Italian and foreign customers) produced by Zegna Baruffa, the “Cashwool” range.
Designers who are looking for the perfect yarns for their outdoor pieces shouldn't look further than “Holiday” (an elastic yarn), “Wellington”, “Journey” and “Sailor”, also available in water-repellent Teflon finishing. A touch of technology is added to the outdoor yarn series with the highly technological “Brandnew Wool” in Super 120s wool, that guarantees extreme comfort and high breathability (and it's also easy to wash/dry).
Wool and cotton blends such as “Ghibli”, “Mistral” and “Silver” have a pleasant handfeel and are therefore ideal to create velvety surfaces, while eco-fur effects can be created using yarns such as “Mousse”, “Alpafur”, “Vello”, “Flair”, “Orsetto” and “Teddy”.
If you're on the lookout for yarns to make sculpted pieces with a reasonable weight-volume ration, go instead for the “air-spun” series, a collection of extralight yarns that for the next season will become larger thanks to the arrival of “Flor” and “Thyme”.
Chiavazza is known for its cashmere yarns for high end pieces and designers who are into luxury should maybe opt for “Cashmere 2/28” (available in 165 colours), “Cashmere Multifilo” and “Muse” (twisted NM 3500 and 1100 threads) or “New Cashmere” in 100% cashmere, ideal for multilayered knits.
The designs showcased in the Zegna Baruffa stand were the result of a joint project between the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Zegna Baruffa and Stoll Germany. Four textile students - Velia Dietz, Pina Jax, Sophie Probst and Sarah Wendler - designed pieces inspired by one main theme “Flamboyant”.
Students explored the possibilities offered by a wide range of yarns in their designs executed first on simple hand-flat knitting machines and then using cutting edge technology at Stoll. The main point was trying to understand the limits and advantages offered by both the methods (a very good point to explore, especially if you're a student).
The four designers followed a trial and error approach throughout the project, coming up with knitwear pieces that incorporated three-dimensional voluminous elements (see for example Pina Jax's shoulder warmer - sixth image in this post), architectural skypscraper-like features (Velia Dietz - last image in this post), golden rubbery motifs (Sophie Probst - image 12 in this post) or delicately glittery yarns mainly employed to create sculpted shapes (Sarah Wendler - images 9 and 13 in this post).
Some of the students opted for Zegna Baruffa's glittery "Sirio" and "Millennium", characterised by special finishes that illuminate organic fibres; others went for "Cashwool" and "Flair" to create elaborate 3D motifs, but each of them experimented as much as possible with the materials and the machines they were offered.
After being showcased during Pitti Filati, the pieces will be exhibited at the Stoll showroom in New York, so, if you're around, try not to miss them while they're there.
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