jokeyhee

It has been exactly 6 years since I wrote my first post on Love Aesthetics and my digital brainchild was born. It is the project I've been involved in for the longest amount of time in my life. My blog has lasted longer than high school. Though Love Aesthetics has slowly been growing into a thing on its own and has outgrown the format of just a blog.

Thank you all for reading and being with me all these years. The best thing about running this blog has been meeting so many of you talented readers and making a lot of new friends. There is a Dutch expression 'stok achter de deur' which literally translates into 'stick behind the door', which means a threat in the most positive sense of the word, an extra motivation for doing something. So thank you all for stopping by each time (and leaving all the lovely comments, I've read each single one of them), you have been my 'stick behind the door' to update Love Aesthetics, to keep the ideas coming and to push myself to deliver better quality each time. I can honestly say that I love you!

Please do come and take a look at our new digital place! There are a lot of new updates waiting!
I've been working hard on it the last month together with Fleur Glansbeek and can not be more excited to finally invite you over!








/ NEW WEBSITE !
http://LOVE-AESTHETICS.nl

Haute Couture always felt like something very distant to me. Something that I'd only occasionally see presented on a dead plastic mannequin in a fashion exposition at a museum. Something that's only made for a small elite club from another era. Something that's so exclusive that it seems like it's taking place in a parallel universe to which we will never have access to. Though the reason why I love fashion so much is because it is so close to the body that it almost becomes a part of it, an extension of yourself, something that everyone must participates in and from which there is no escape. Haute Couture felt so untouchable and far away that I always regarded it more as art than as fashion. Basically I felt excluded and left out from it, not having a spare 10 grand to spend on a dress, not being a celebrity in need of a red carpet outfit and not having access to the intimate shows to see the garments in movement.

Attending the Maison Martin Margiela show forced me to think more about wether Haute Couture is still relevant in 2013. Yes we already know that it is about the detailing, the craftsmanship, the exclusivity, blablabla. But you never get to experience that by just seeing the collections through images, it just never comes through unless you see it in real life, in movement. I tell you, it is impressive.

I found how important Haute Couture can be for a house right now for many other reasons than selling clothes or having celebs wear garments (let's hope that Kanye never wears a Margiela mask again, to ironically, use it for its opposite purpose: getting attention instead of being anonymous). In The case of Maison Martin Margiela, who only have had couture collections for 3 seasons, it is a way to gain more freedom. Complete conceptual freedom, the design team gets to do whatever they want without thinking about sales or wearability. It's like going back to the core of the house. I have been told that some ideas that are too unwearable and get left out of the ready to wear lines are saved for the Couture shows. It is about showing what the maison is all about, what it is capable of, what techniques it can apply.

And as expected, Maison Martin Margiela broke all the rules of Haute Couture and send some worn down jeans down the runway. These were my favorite looks, paired with oversized collars and masks made out of large marble beads on bare skin. So simple yet so extravagant. Then there was the deconstructed and reconstructed vintage and antique garments; a 1950s prom dress, an Art Nouveau curtain and even some beadings from the Napoleon-era. Recuperating these vintage and antique pieces was such a respectful way to treat clothes, almost like an homage, making old clothes relevant again for the future. It could even be a statement from MMM connected to the relevance haute couture itself.

Never have I seen a person look this good in red lipstick as this beautiful androgynous creature that came down the runway at the ArtEZ show. Though after the show was finished, he took off the pvc suit he was showcasing but left on the matte red lipstick. Then when going for a backstage peek, one of Barbara Langendijk's models (more on her soon!) caught my eye with her thick black shiny hair in two ponytails, one clipped down with a minimalistic silver barrette.

Photography, Dominik Tarabanski
Set Design, Zu Sb
Fashion Design, Harim Jung
Makeup, Francisca Saavedra
Hairstyle, Takayoshi Tsukisawa

Yesterday I stumbled upon these gorgeous images made by Polish photographer Dominik Tarabanski.
But what struck me the most were the designs by Parsons student Harim Jung. Specially the techniques she used to build her clothes is incredibly exciting: the technical way she deconstructed the
garments and worked with the patterns, layering them , leaving them loose from the rest of the garment and then applying beautiful luxe finishings like a metal gold strip.
It even reminded me a bit of the dress with layered patterns from Hussein Chalayan.
Harim has been selected as one of the 14 Parsons student for the Empowering Imagination competition, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her!


/Update
Managed to contact Harim Jung (thank you anonymous for leaving a link to her website!) and she was so kind to answer a few questions:

/Can you please tell me a bit about the fabrics and materials that you used?
My inspiration first started from my high school uniform so I wanted the fabrics to carry the essence of it. The navy pieces were mainly wool fabrics, where as the white pieces were mainly cotton resembling the white shirt of the uniform. The brass is an additional element that comes from my experience back in high school where we couldn't wear any accessories due to the school's policy, so I designed the brass to accessorize the clothes rather than the body.

/What are your plans after graduation?
I would love to continue with my own work at the same time I am open to experiencing any opportunities that come in my way!

/In the style.com interview you mentioned that you'd like keep your garments accessible, how do you do that, do you keep functionality in mind a lot when designing?
Because the entire process of my thesis was very experimental, I didn't want to make clothes that people had a hard time wearing. The collection was about sharing my story, my memories, yet providing an experience for the wearer to create their own and interpret the pieces in their own way. I also focused on creating pieces for anyone to wear and have access to. Ultimately the goal was to to find a happy medium between the creativity and the accessibility

This London fashion week post is deliberately 3 months late.
At the time every single inch of digital fashion space was saturated by fashion week related images.
This was just to good to let it get lost in that sea of runway snapshots. Jackie JS Lee was my favorite show in London.

According to the papers on the benches on of the show, this was going to be a collection inspired by the African continent.
But as soon as the models came out it was clear that Jackie stepped far away from all the cliches involving african inspired fashion.
Instead she focussed on applying traditional african weaving techniques on her minimalist designs. Combining thick, robust loop knits with delicate fabrics
and incorporating bits of fluffy wool on top of the loafers and sandal-loafers. The show closed with four enormous box jackets in the thickest imaginable wool, too beautiful to capture well on camera.
I was lucky enough to get to meet the lovely Jackie herself and hear her explain about her urge to travel, and the way these trips inspire her.