ZANDRA RHODES. A HYMN TO LIFE.

Beyond the color. Beyond the conformism of the British fashion industry. The main characteristic of Zandra Rodhes' art is definitely the combination of these two elements. Thanks to her creativity, she already in the mid-sixties gained a privileged position within the new generation of original designers. Her attention is always focused on the garments and her approach to fabrics always has a great dialectical impact. The bright colors and the vivid patterns are like a surreal déjà-vu, with ethnic inspirations and a great theatrical impression. The hand-painted clothes made of chiffon, with flowing sleeves and wide necklines, refer to the Eastern tradition while overflowing with incredible sensuality. The safety pins displayed in her dresses take inspiration from the punk culture and earned her the nick name Princess of Punk. On the other hand, the golden swirls on the straps from “The Renaissance Gold Collection” (1981) refer to the Italian sixteenth-century taste, that were also so well beloved by Bill Gibb. Zandra Rodhes has designed for clients as diverse as Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Freddie Mercury. She keeps designing for the rich and famous around the world, from royalties to rockstars, always with a spontaneous and natural approach to garments and colors. After so many years, she still works up to 14 hours a day. An incredible source of vitality and glee, from inside the materials. A hymn to life.

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN: A NEW FUTURISTIC EMANATION

More than fashion. According to Hussein Chalayan the boundary between fashion and art is vague and in constant motion. His collections and fashion shows are always in the middle between show and installation and no one has ever questioned the role of the designer and the fashion like him . Eternally dialectic and with a continuous antithetical clash, his poetry can subvert the usual rules of consumption, while bending the production flow of appreciation. To Chalayan fashion is a syncretism of different disciplines, from anthropology to science, and his collections are always inspired by new technologies and by his personal approach to them. When he presented his first collection, The Tangent Flows, in 1993, his position on the world of fashion became immediately clear. The project was to bury silk dresses and dig them up a few months later. The outcome was really unpleasant, but the provocation had as a result that Brown, the luxury boutique in London, bought the entire collection. In 2009, with the collection Inertia, Chalayan applied the concepts of speed and new technologies to the garments. In the 2011 collection, Airborne, he used the LED technology to create stunning light shows on the catwalk.

Thanks to Chalayan, a new flow continues to increase, a new futuristic emanation spreads, a new window on fashion is now open to the world and to the feelings of modern man.

BILL GIBB, AN ECLECTIC DESIGNER

An obsession and a rare gift. The artistic contribution to fashion of the eclectic designer Bill Gibb could be summed up in these two words. He came from New Pitsligo, a small village in the north of Scotland, and he moved to London at the age of 19, exactly in 1963. His career was fulminating. It took him just a few years to have his own fashion house and make clothes for celebrities such as Liz Taylor and Twiggy. By 1975 he was in retail. His entire poetry revolved around an incredible inclination to the romantic style and the traditional garments of the close Eastern Europe. Drapery with classical references and wide sleeves with references to the Italian Renaissance are just some of the main elements of his artistic production. The innovative use of many different patterns - from floral designs and geometric patterns through to checked tartans - within a single dress helped creating “the Gibb style” and consecrate him as master of decoration. Incapable of understanding the logic of business, he always refused to make serial productions of his clothes. Designing clothes and seeing them worn on elegant women gave him the greatest pleasure. A dreamer, a free spirit, a poet of the fabric. He died very young, leaving a huge gap in the fashion industry.

THERE IS NO LIMIT TO IMAGINATION

The making of textiles is a form of art. There is almost no limit to the variety of effects which may be produced by combining different kinds of thread and structure. The design of the textiles is obviously influenced by the nature of the fibres and by the weaving  processes. It may vary from the simple twist of weave and warp of an elegant piece of  taffetà, to the intricate and  elaborate threads of brocade.

The fusion of different patterns and the addition of colour can improve creativity. During the years famous designers from all around the world have proved that. Fashion has gone through an endless series of tests. It has experienced the medieval romanticism of shapes, fabrics and colors of Bill Gibb. It has suffered the deconstruction of the buried clothes of Hussein Chalayan. It has witnessed the incredible and colorful sensitivity of Zandra Rodhes. It has been seduced by the plastic revenge and the sexual empowerment of Paco Rabanne. There is no limit to imagination.

I simply adore these four designers and I would like to introduce you all to them. So I’ve decided to write a post about each of them that will be online in the following weeks. I hope you will enjoy!

LET'S START

Let’s start from the very beginning.

I used to be very wild as a little girl. My hair was always cut quite short and even if my mother persisted to comb them and put pink clips on them, my hairdo was always weird. Something in between a splendid princess and an orphan right out of a Dickens’s novel.

Almost same problem with the shoes. I’ve never understood why they had to be so small and narrow compared to my feet and above all, why I always had to wear those terrible white cotton socks. I’ve always suspected that one of my direct ancestors had been one of Cinderella’s half-sisters and now and then, when my mother could’t see me, I took off the shoes. Walking barefoot was always a relief.

Besides those little misadventures, I wouldn’t say that my childhood was bad, but, and that’s a fact, I always felt different and totally out of place. I remembered that the only thing that could calm me down was climbing up the big pear tree in my grandpa’s garden. Watching the sky from above. Reading a book among the fronds. Feeling like on the top of my vessel. Finally free.

My father used to be a book restorer, so I always saw needles and threads scattered in my house, piles of different materials, cardboard and paper collected untidily, waiting to being used. Books everywhere. Books were also a salvation for me. Sewing was part of my DNA, that just came out naturally, by trial and error, I guess. Nobody taught me how. I was 7 when I started and I used to sew really simply things. Small blankets for my sister’s stuffed animals. Tiny dresses for our dolls. My mother was so worried that accidentally I could have hurt myself, but it never happened. It was also in my DNA  to be disobedient.

A couple of years later, I was in a physiotherapistic clinic, waiting for my mother’s visit. Bored to death, I took a fashion magazine lying on a small table, right in front of me and started to leaf through. My attention was suddendly captured by a photo, so I tore out the page, I put it in my pocket, intending to draw inspiration by it. No revelation. Maybe a vocation. I would say a big intuition, yes. I sewed my very first big "thing“ when I was almost 12. I had no sewing machine, but a lot of those big needles that my father used for sewing his books. I could barely handle them. At home I had a couple of old jeans and I decided to use them to make me a skirt. With some small scissors I unstitched every part of them and then I put them back together again. I used a pair of big scissors that my father gave me to shape the material, trying to make a flared skirt. I adorned it, cutting round some small pieces, using the belt loops to make a sun with its sunshines. I also cut a moon and some stars. I sewed every day. All summer. I also began to draw my own collection and I read a lot of books about fashion that my father found for me at the library, always being inspired by styles from the past. Every day a little step more. They were really exciting days. Unfortunately I never had the chance to wear that skirt, but I always kept that particular emotion in my heart. Creating, being inspired, was the best thing that could ever happen to me.