At university, there would always be that one person who claimed that they did not look at other designers work or read magazines. Whether or not they genuinely did so because they did not want to be influenced by what they saw (which is understandable) or they said so to belittle those of us that did I don’t know, but it always irked me. That’s like a photography not looking at other photographers work, or even a doctor not reading med journals-mind boggling. You learn a lot from watching, and Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy Fall 2010 Couture collection is an example of why you should always pay attention to what designers are doing.
Inspiration is something you will see I talk about a lot on this blog (it’s something that fascinates me), and upon seeing how beautiful the Givenchy Couture collection was, “What was the starting point?” was the first question that entered my head. The “art” of extracting from your inspiration and working it into a collection is something that I still haven’t perfected. I have the ability to do it but it’s not great (my reference is either too obvious, or I deviate so far from what I was inspired by that I may as well have not researched it in the first place), so it was interesting to see how Tisci’s inspiration-Frida Kahlo and the three things that she passionately painted about (religion, sensuality and the human anatomy) were shown through the striking dresses.
Kahlo was half-Jewish and half-Catholic and this you can see represented in the silhouette of the dresses and the length as well as the sharp white-think nuns and Mexican wedding dresses.
I assume the sensuality is shown through the feathers, warm colours, crystals and pearls *drools* and the human anatomy drawn from her suffering with Spina bifida and breaking her spine, is represented through spine belts, and the meticulously straight lines that bordered the zips.
Labels: art, couture, fashion week
