Readers who keep themselves regularly updated about architecture, fashion and design and who may have the chance to go every now and then to an art or design fair are usually pretty quick at spotting certain trends that may pervade at some point all these disciplines. If you visited for example the London Design Festival in September, you may have noticed the Paper Space hub for the 100% Design International Pavilions area.
Made by Studio Glowacka in collaboration with Maria Fulford Architects, this architectural installation providing a space for various events, talks and debates, was made using 1500 meters of white A4 paper slashed, folded and draped to create an undulating ceiling surrounded by vertical paper strips that protected the hub from the rest of the hall. The idea of folded, slashed, aerated or perforated spaces came back in Bill Gaytten's Spring/Summer 2014 collection for John Galliano.
Inspired by the bright colours and sci-fi like materials of sneakers (in many ways this was a less literal interpretation of the "shoes for your body" theme we saw at Mary Katrantzou), the collection featured designs in high-tech materials including vacuum-form Neoprene to create 3D embossed effects on rigid shapes and severe silhouettes.
The folding technique borrowed from the art of origami was firmly in the designer's mind, inspiring geometric laser cutouts (and triangular prints that gave the illusions of cut outs - a reinterpretation of Schiaparelli's tears dress?) and perforations on bonded cropped jackets.
Stephen Jones' headpieces also moved from the slashed and laser cut theme: some of the hats donned by the models called to mind the '80s flat packed caps that looked like an A4 sheet and that would take shape once you put them on your head thanks to the circular slashes cut through them (a model unsuccessfully relaunched by milliner J Smith Esquire for his Mr Smith S/S 2011 collection actually).
Also the cut out motifs on Gaytten's tops embellished with laser-cut petals looked a bit architectural, pointing towards further innovative techniques currently employed in fashion, including thermowelding, melting for construction and ultrasound melting, that could be used to create more architectural projects and motifs as we will hopefully see also in future posts.
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