ZOE ECONOMEDIS STUDIES PERCEPTION

Last week I did a wonderful collaboration with the talented photographer Zoe Economedis. She is a magician with her camera. I left everything in her control (which is usually hard for me to do because I tend to micro-manage), but I am super happy with the results. Here are the photos, enjoy :)

EX[IE]PERIMENTAL COLLECTIVE

A selection of my work will be exhibited in the upcoming EX[IE]PERIMENTAL COLLECTIVE Exhibition, part of the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program. Curated by the wonderfully talented Christina Exie who is also an RMIT graduate, the exhibition will be open to public from 22/03/2010 to 28/03/2010 at Melbourne City's Von Haus. So come by on the opening night, have a drink and enjoy the art and fashion. :)

Program Synopsis written by H. Pappas

Ex[ie]perimental Collective is an exhibition that unites five of Melbourne’s newest conceptual fashion designers and their practices. The focus of this collective is to emphasize the importance of clothing and its potential for innovation through research and process. Emma Boseley, Katia Di Crescenzo, Christina Exie, Kara Liu and Helen Pappas met through their studies at RMIT’s Bachelor of Design in Fashion. Yet all have developed their own dynamic styles as designers, tailors, jewelers and collagist, making this exhibition a dynamic fusion of techniques and construction as well as individual concepts. Each of the works in the Ex[ie]perimental Collective showcases an array of methodologies and textural elements. By exhibiting segments throughout the design process, this exhibition gives an insight into these designers’ initial questions as well as the final artifact. Three-dimensional patternmaking, sculptural leather molding, collage, and jewelry techniques, creates a poetically combined display intriguing the viewer for further curiosity. As a young designer collective, this is their initiation into the Melbourne Design scene, and a contribution to the diversity of Australian and Melbournian talent.

FROM NOTHING TO...

This was an experiment I did at the end of the design development process in 'A Study of Perception'. I changed a few variables, using non-self-supporting fabrication, blowing up the scale of the cubes, and separating the cubes into different seams instead of having them conjoined in the previous garments. Originally I planed to keep the various sized cubes hanging and have the dress as a drape piece in juxtaposition to the previous structured pieces in the project. However out of curiosity I wanted to see if gravity wasn't a factor, what would the dress look like, And it transformed, from something subtle, into something grand; front something opaque, into something translucent, from something flat, into something three-dimensional; from something ordinary, into something magnificent. And all I did was opening it up. :)

A STUDY OF PERCEPTION

'A Study of Perception' is a collection based on the principle that everything is relative. Heaviness and lightness can not exist without the other. In the development process of this collection, I explored many ways of creating heaviness out of lightness and vice versa. The end result is an interesting visual deception that is both light and heavy, complex yet minimal. Big thanks to the talented team that pushed through on a very cold, rainy and windy day.

Designer / Stylist / KARA X LIU

Photographer /  Leo Zou

Model / Sam Frew @ Lush International Model Management

Hair & Make-up / Brooke Boseley

 

INSTINCTUAL BEAST

A couple of experiments created in the Instinctual Beast studio, turning something as soft and gentle looking as the floral print silk organza into something that looks a little hostile and dangerous. Some of my friends nicknamed the cubed sleeve jacket the 'Calamari Jacket', and the neckpiece the 'Durian Collar'. :)