In the Odyssey, Penelope, the wife of the protagonist, waits twenty years for his return, delaying with a trick her suitors asking to marry them. She claims she will choose one of them when she finishes weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes, but she actually keeps on undoing parts of the textile. This story easily comes to mind after seeing some of the designs in Leonard's Autumn//Winter 2015 collection created by Yiqing Yin.
The show opened with well constructed all-white ensembles that pointed towards an architectural derivation. The different textures integrated in the designs - elephant skin-like three-dimensional textures created by thermal printing processes or silk-screen prints - were a tribute to the house's innovative printing techniques and tangible proof of Yiqing Yin's interest in researching architectural features rather than just fashion techniques.
In the garments that followed the designer played with a different inspiration: she took a gray tapestry-like jacquard and unraveled it into loose fringe-like threads. The tapestry assumed a new and different three-dimensional value and the garments looked handmade on an ancient loom.
It is easy to wonder if these garments were inspired by Yiqing Yin's own installation for the Venice Pavilion at the 55th International Venice Art Biennale. That piece - consisting in a fragile sculpture, a liquid organza panel forming the silhouette of a woman embroidered with silk threads with the node point technique - was made in collaboration with the Luigi Bevilacqua weaving mill. In a way, it almost looked as if Yiqing Yin had seen complex artisanal weaving techniques at Luigi Bevilacqua's, such as the one to make the soprarizzo (literally "over-the-curls") velvet, and had tried to recreate them in some of these garments to form a sort of architectural version of Penelope's infinite shroud.
Apart from architecture, tapestry and ancient weaving traditions, another inspiration may have come from art as some of the shredded garments called to mind Naama Arad's images of landscape and architectures made by piecing together strips of shredded paper that give the final installation a sort of mirage-like quality.
The shredding technique was also employed to create colourful tapestry-like appliqued motifs of flowers or as fringes composing abstract motifs.
Trademark Yiqing Yin's draped flowing dresses followed: these silk georgette pieces were characterised by contrasting panels that had been printed both before and after pleating, another technique that made you think about architecture and the possibility of building with innovative light yet strong textiles, while sport was introduced via the final coats, minidresses and dungarees that borrowed from skiing attires.
Fabric-wise, there were plenty of ideas on Leonard's runway, maybe too many for a collection featuring only 34 looks. Yiqing Yin also seems divided between introducing younger and shorter silhouettes while keeping up with the fine details and artisanal techniques that the fashion house's more established customers favour. Hopefully, she will have enough time to develop at Leonard more experimental looks based on textiles and fabrics that will reinvent in an architectural key the house's codes and traditions.
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