INHALE MAG » Alexandra Ivascu

RISK-TAKER – FASHION DESIGNER CRAIG GREEN

admin — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:45:48 +0000

London-born, Craig Green graduated the faculty and the MA at Central Saint Martin’s. He initially was interested in a portrait course, but ended by graduating fashion design. He said in an interview: “My internship with Walter was amazing! He is one of my design hero’s and even meeting him was exciting enough, but to be able to work closely with him and experience his design process was amazing. Walter is an extremely creative person and a great teacher, I learnt a lot there and I met some fantastic friends in Antwerp.”

photo craig-green.com

Craig started making women’s clothes, but soon realized that he is more into men’s fashion: “Menswear just makes more sense – and the clumsy, chunky aesthetic of my work I find just works better on a man… Another point that has always interested me is ideals of masculinity and D.I.Y, I think growing up around so many tradesmen and my dad being a plumber has somehow influenced me.” He collaborated with Kokon To Zai, Adidas, Bally, Robert Wilson, Christopher Shannon.

photo dazeddigital.com

He works with raw materials or materials that are not finished in a way or another: wood, remains of textiles, threads, tape. He prefers the contrasts: dark materials mixed with light ones, black and white contrast, shiny and flat colours, teared up materials put together with materials that are impeccably sewed. In his collections, he likes to experiment and his characters seem to come from a world filled with fantasy and adventure: “I always start a collection or project with an idea of a strong visual, this may come from art, stories, horror or a mix of influence and then the ideas seem to grow from there.”

photo dazeddigital.com

In an interview, he talks about the way he became mature in his work, about the obstacles a young designer finds at the beginning of the career and about the contrast between his vision on fashion and the public’s expectancies: “A lot has happened in the last year and I think when you are pushed, when you leave the MA course and suddenly you are in the real world you have to stand by your work yourself and there is this realization that you have to sell clothes, it is a business at the end of the day. It is not a visual or a concept. I am slowly starting to find the balance between wearable – desirable clothing and also an exciting show. It can’t be so arty all the time that it is unapproachable to people. People should be able to approach and relate to it. Because it is fashion, not art. Although they blur into each other; fashion is much more fast-paced business with a lot of restrictions and art can be extremely slow paced with not a lot of restrictions. I guess restrictions within the fast paced fashion what makes it exciting as well. I have always looked at art, performance and sculpture for references. Whether it is the running order, the way I do a photo shoot, fabric or something I make for the show they all come from that kind of place.”

photo dazeddigital.com

photo catch-fire.com

photo craig-green.com

“ARRRGH! MONSTERS” Project
photo craig-green.com

His advice for young designers is “Taking a risk. I don’t think people take risks anymore in fashion. People want to sell, of course I want to do that too but I think you should still take a risks.”

Video:

Website: http://craig-green.com/

quotes vis dazeddigital.com

by Alexandra Ivascu

Alexandra Ivașcu is a fashion designer living and working in Cluj. She is pursuing her PhD at the University of Arts and Design, Cluj, studying the representation of the couple in contemporary art.

Website: http://www.ivascualexandra.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Artisallwehave

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IVAN GRUNDAHL – “MY DARKNESS IS DEAR TO ME”

admin — Fri, 18 Oct 2013 08:52:18 +0000

Danish designer Ivan Grundahl has started his career assisting clients in choosing the right clothes and that took 15 years. He opened an exclusive brand fashion men then he declared: “I did not enjoy it all that much, to be honest. Men do not need much to be invented for them — all the creative, provocative, new and sophisticated things in fashion are done for women. So here I am.”
He is inspired by “the bitchy type” of women. The designer says his clients are “well-educated, good- looking, tough-borderline-bitchy- my clients can sometimes be really horrible. All my female friends are difficult, demanding and selfish… But complicated and difficult people somehow happen to be the more exciting people.”

photo galacticmauve.blogspot.ro

The silhouettes he creates are architectural and have asymmetric cuts, which makes people associate him with designer Yohji Yamamoto. The limited color palette keeps the austerity and simplicity of Nordic design. Most outfits are black with accents of gray, white, red or cream. He is not interested in prints, even if this is in opposition with the advice that might help him “develop and enrich business”: “Every now and then sales people try to talk me into bringing the flowers in but I resist. My darkness is dear to me.”

photo galacticmauve.blogspot.ro

His preferred materials are leather and fabric, mixed with accessories like bags with oversized pockets and straps of different sizes.
Grundhal has over 70 stores in Danmark as well as shops in the UK and U.S. His public is formed of women that wear 36-46 and aged from 20 to 70 years. The strategy is as pragmatic as it is good since the designer addresses a wide audience without precise boundaries between generations. Therefore, Grundahl ‘rejuvenates’ old people and encourages young people around 25 to get used to a certain implicity and well-tailored clothes that are also comfortable.

photo galacticmauve.blogspot.ro

This concept is rarely applied by young designers or by the major fashion houses : ” Most designers target young ages, which is very natural. You may think of a middle-aged clientele- which some top- selling designers no doubt do- take Versace, for example- but there is no way to survive in the fashion industry as a self-styled old women’s label. There is one very simple reason: everyone wants to look young. I am 55, and I would never go to a store advertising itself as selling clothes for men in their mid-fifties. No way!” The designer adds: You have to carry yourself with dignity and style — in the sense that there is no need to show your cleavage when all you have to expose is a bit of saggy tired flesh. Natural and cool, classy, comfortable and down-to-earth would do beautifully.”

photo galacticmauve.blogspot.ro

photo odalisquemagazine.com

by Alexandra Ivascu

Website: http://www.ivascualexandra.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Artisallwehave

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“THE NON” LABEL- RESEARCH AND CREATION

admin — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 08:48:55 +0000

“The NON” is a British label that creates men clothes under the direction of Tony Spackman, one of the designers that used to work for Nike. With an attention which we might call obsessed with details and to the tailoring, Spakman describes The Non as being: “ a current search for authenticity, THE NON embraces our relentless desire to further knowledge, experience and personal development, our inexhaustible need for complexity and intellectual stimulation, our ongoing search for new luxuries.”

photo cargocollective.com

He was born in Essex, England and he worked for Givenchy, Maharishi, The Duffer of St.George. His visual stories come from a deep analysis, from a great intuition and from his ability to credit the authenticity. His collections have something from the atmosphere created in Gregory Colbert’s documentary “Ashes and Snow” and the typology of the character seems inspired from the mixture of austerity and grace that is so common between Buddhist monks. The projects have their own direction, and they are a personal research leading to non-conformist results: the painted shirts with the help of solar light, the piece that has pressure points with therapeutical effects which “levitate”, constructed with magnets.

Among his experiments we mention:

HANDCRAFTED CURIOSITY / Distressed Leather Varsity / Personal Projects (2013) (+poza)

photo cargocollective.com

HANDCRAFTED CURIOSITY / Sun bleached / Personal Projects (2012) (+poza)

photo cargocollective.com

NON / AN OBJECTS TALE / Concept sketches (+poza)

photo cargocollective.com

One of the designer’s concepts for the Odi et Amo AW 2011-2012 men Collection is “I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask?

I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tormented.”

photo cargocollective.com

The designer then explains : “This particular experience of trouble from Catullus is a sad realization that situations arise independently of the human will. It is beyond logic and only in the realm of feeling. Is it then that our physical world is a projection of the mental world and therefore, you are the ruler who imagines the world as it is and this world exists solely in your mind, even if what you feel is not fully understood?”

photo cargocollective.com

by Alexandra Ivascu

Website: http://www.ivascualexandra.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Artisallwehave

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THE ANDROGYNOUS SILHOUETTE OF BARBARA Í GONGINI

admin — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:15:21 +0000

Barbara Í Gongini graduated Danish Design School in 1996 and lunched her own brand in Copenhagen, in 2005. He collaborates with many artists from different domain: film, photographt, music. The designer is attracted by different materials and forms that she considers to be a substitute of colours. She works with materials that are painted in black and white and mainly leather, fur, rubber, silk, dry cotton, nylon.

Her clothes are a lot about intergender concept as there are many masculine details in her clothes made for females. Barbara ignores the today stereotypes when it comes to fashion that is specific to women:“I don’t really understand why the new generation all want to look like school girls, for example.”