Range of products on offer at Front Row Society
(L-R) Pansy Patch Scarf by Emma Smyth, Sinner Tank Top by Ivano Tella You See Your Tribe leggings by Saori Ito,
Here is an innovative brand and design house making one long front row for customers and designers to sit side by side. Based in Berlin, Germany and conjured by local Florian Ellsaesser, Front Row Society is all about “design with a story”. Fostering a collaborative open collective of designers, FRS gives their customers what they want by making them the designers.
FRS scours the whole globe for new, fresh and exciting talent through their design competition challenges. Posting a new challenge every few months, FRS gives anyone the opportunity to put forward their designs which are then voted on by the general public to get a shortlist before celebrating the five or so winners. The winners do get a cash prize but they’re also showcased on their website including the info on what challenge they entered and where the hail from.
Announcement of the winners of the most recent challenge, the Rockabilly Bash Shirt
The aim of the game for the challenges is all about prints of all varying capacities. They cycle through a range of different products from scarves and leggings, to swimwear and bags. This month’s challenge is for Autumn handbags with the theme being Pure Math or Art Deco. FRS also helps out with relevant tutorials applicable to the varied contests.
It’s a great way to engage the customer, making them not only the audience of an ever changing and exciting show, but putting out a hand to pull them on stage too. Designer or customer or vice versa. One is not necessarily the other but they could be both, which is great news for either!
Battlefields II range by Stefano Popovski
Rucksack, Handbag and Clutch
It’s not the only way they create and develop their ranges but it plays a big part and they still reference the designer at all stages which is a nice indication that there’s a mutual respect happening across the seasonal lines.
So have a burl, flex your repeat design muscle and even if you don’t win you can always come to Digital Fabrics to get your spanking new design printed and then do with as you please! Now if that’s not exciting, the weekend is sure to be dull, enjoy!!
Scarf prints
(L-R) Intertwined by Emma Smyth, Coral Melody by Oana Soare, Syncretic Cycle by Valentino Fiammetta
image from : www.grant.org/plewins/india2000/Artists/block.html
Block printing on cloth for the clothing market has been in circulation since the time of the Ancient Egyptians. India and China both too have rich histories in printing cloth to be worn as garments. In Peru, prior to the settlement of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, the Incan society had a highly developed method of printing. In the seventeenth century, with high society in Europe driving fashion trends, the popularity of hand painted and block printed calico from India increased rapidly. The superiority of fine fabric and bright designs from India lead to their ban in France and England until they were eventually lifted in 1759 as the European mills perfected the art of copies.
Mid eighteenth century saw the start of the industrial revolution and the introduction of new technologies. Block printing was replaced by mechanised roller printing. Mass produced textiles for both the home and for fashion began. Although the high volume of printed fabric tended to lessen the quality of the designs, it also made them far more affordable which in turn showed an increase in middle to lower class people wearing printed fashions.
Flatbed screen printing was introduced in the 1930’s with improvements in stencil application throughout the years. Fibre developments and metal verse wooden screens also saw dramatic improvements to the accuracy and multi coloured designs printed. The 1950’s mechanised flatbed printing and in 1962 rotary printing was introduced.
Digital textile printing in the late 1980’s radically changed textile design and production for the fashion industry. Dye sublimation printing furthered this impact in the 1990’s. The creative possibilities, aesthetics and photographic replication have considerably increased a designer’s choice for quality printed fashion textiles. This digital fabric printing technology is constantly being improved and modified; opening doors to all areas of innovative fashion design the world over.
Take a closer look in our other article on digital fabric printing prospects.
Amy Dudman textile designs for high fashion
These beautiful images from textile artist Amy Dudman caught our eye this week when posted on another fav blog site Pattern People, and we just had to spread the word!
A recent graduate and award winning at that, Amy showcases her area of specialty in digital printing with a whole bunch of gorgeous colours and textures, overlay effects and world class application.
Employing the use of embossing lifts (quite literally) these textile pieces onto another level enhancing the printed textures but working in combination that shows this cleaver chicken is thinking way outside the selvedge.
It will be exciting to keep an eye on this one and see what heights she jumps for next!
From ‘captured surveillance’ A collection of embossed fabrics constructed from 100% wool and a combination of compliment digitally printed silks.
- A selection a textile designs draped by Amy Dudman
A creative collaboration between Iris Van Herpen, Nick Knight and Daphne Guinness; has resulted in one amazing piece of wearable art. Rules don’t apply to Iris Van Herpen who is well known for her eccentric futuristic couture masterpieces. For her latest project she has join forces with Knight and Guinness to create a water dress which will be the centre piece for the SHOWcabinet exhibition.
This garment was inspired by the actual splash of water onto Daphne Guinness which was recorded on high speed camera’s by Nick Knight. Van Herpen sculpted the natural movement of water using pet G plastic, creating a one of a kind garment. Iris van Herpen truely thinks outside of the box, not only with her latest design but all her designs fusing old and forgotten techniques with innovative materials.
Exhibition starts June 6 at 19 Motcomb Street in London.
www.irisvanherpen.com/home
www.irisvanherpen.com/home
Images from www.irisvanherpen.com/home
Maria Primachenko’s Original (in part) “Rat on a Journey”
It has come to light this past week that internationally recognised Finnish home wares and textile house Marimekko, has allegedly pilfered a print design from a Unkraninian folk artist, Maria Primachenko. Although Marimekko as a company holds the commercial license for their print designs, their freelance designers are essentially responsible for what they create. In this case long time Marimekko freelancer and daughter of an original illustrator at the brand, Kristina Isola, is the designer in question.
The only difference in the two artworks appears to be that the newer of the two is without the woodland character giving the work the title “Rat on a Journey”. Completed in 1963, Primachenko’s gouache painting is now housed in the Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art Museum in Kiev and featured in a book along a similar theme.
Isola’s version, sans rats, developed in 2007 for Marimekko now adorns the Finnair long-haul Airbus 330 in an ongoing collaboration between the carrier and design house. Although now shown in blues rather than the original greens, there is no mistake for we all can see the forest for the trees. Marimekko is rightly so in “…complete shock and profound disappointment” (sic), however the airline as yet has made no comment, nor have the changed any of the information about the design on their website.
It will be interesting to learn of any developments about this as the subject of copyright and who can use what and when is of constant concern to designers of any magnitude. Simply though it all boils down to trying to stay as true to yourself and your own creative endeavours and taking great care not only with safe guarding your own work but doing the proper research when taking inspiration.
Not to put a downer on an inspired weekend though, go get out there, produce stuff and love it!
Kristina Isola’s version for Marimekko “Forest Dwellers” 2007
- Finnair Airbus 330 with the design in question
Another Finnair aeroplane showing an iconic Marimekko design
Nick Night of SHOWstudio.com is among the world’s most influential photographers of our time, working for magazines such as Vogue, i-D and Dazed & Confused. He also has customers such as Alexander McQueen, YSL and Dior who call upon for fashion and advertising projects. Knight’s latest project is photographs inspired my paintings from the Baroque period. Using heat, chemicals and water treatment during the printing process knight has twisted and distorted these elegant floral’s into dripping psychedelic masterpieces.
We have noticed this trend filtering through many avenues on the internet and we are excited to see these trickle down into the print world.
http://nickknight.com/
http://nickknight.com/
http://nickknight.com/
http://nickknight.com/
http://nickknight.com/
Images from http://nickknight.com/
Wes Fleming and Phillip Johnson in the Trailfinders Australian Garden
Picture: Ella Pellegrini
Pretty Petals of the Chelsea Flower Show
Could there be anything more inspiring for a floral print than attending the horticultural world’s most prestigious week every year? Celebrating the centenary of the of the Chelsea Flower Show
being held at its current location, the Chelsea Hospital (from 1862 held in various locations in and around London), on display are the Show Gardens, exciting new and re-emerging plants in the Great Pavilion and the Artisan Retreats to give Burke and his backyard a run for his money.
This year the Best Show Garden went to our own home grown landscapers and design team, Trailfinders Australian Garden presented by Flemings. With a billabong, a waterfall and countless native flowers and plants and with a waratah inspired studio to boot, it had an obvious Aussie spirit that bloomed out above the rest.
And it’s hard not see the connection between the Chelsea Flower Show and the floral prints that pretty up spring wardrobes (talking Northern hemisphere spring) when there is such gorgeous imagery in abundance! Take a virtual stroll along the garden paths and be inspired to wear some petals and blooms this weekend to brighten the winter drab that is threatening to soak in.
The Great Gatsby, film still 2013
Is anyone else on the edge of their chaise lounge fastening their t-strap pumps about to bust out the Charleston, with the expectation of Bazmark’s hotly anticipated remake of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of the same name?!! It’s almost as if this is the first time we’re all hearing about the decade that was the 1920’s with all the excitement and build up that’s going on. And maybe not everyone will agree on whether or not the film as a whole was worth the delayed release, but much can be (and will be) said for Catherine Martin’s costumes and Miuccia Prada’s collaboration on the project.
The new film of The Great Gatsby will highlight in particular the decadence and frivolity of the 1920’s but with a discernibly modern accessibility, inviting the viewer to appreciate and experience what it would have been like to go to an infamous party hosted by Jay and the many others like him. Fur stolls, miles of fringing, plenty of sequins, feathers and head pieces along with a dress covered with crystals all play a key role in bringing the story forward to take us back again.
Of course the catwalks for the past few seasons have shown hints of the flapper era inspiration, warming the audience up to the idea of 1920’s styling and the trend is likely to continue in one incarnation or another, just look at all the cropped ‘boy’ haircuts on celebrities at the moment or the amount of speakeasy’s (not so quietly) popping up. For the roaring era to be making such a glamorous return to many aspects of fashion and culture, those who’s Midnight in Paris perfect time period is the 1920’s, its time to indulge.
The Graffiti Room (www.style.com)
The Metropolitan Museum in New York opens its doors this week to the annual Costume Institute exhibition with this year’s theme, Punk: Chaos to Couture. It looks back to honour the roots of the antiestablishment counterculture that emerged in the seventies and how this ended up inspiring and influencing all levels of the fashion world from then till now.
The exhibition show cases many high end designers with pieces that perhaps were never intended to be worn in any form, and were merely used as shock factors on the runway. The question surely then has to be asked, is it really punk if its couture? If it causes discomfort, then that’s surely a nod in the right direction.
It all comes down to the truism that everything old is new again, and when considering fashion everything really has been done before but the magic is how it is interpreted and reinterpreted. Surely everyone has had a go at punk, whether it be street level or couture. If you look back and see a (fake) leather jacket, ripped jeans, a safety pin holding something together even if unseen, that rebellious piercing or tattoo when you were 16, the political t-shirt you now just wear to bed…It might not be properly hard core but there’s an undercurrent just as there is a flower child in us all as well!
So get a little disruptive this weekend, provoke your inner punk and meld in a little DIY couture just for the hell of it.
Ukraine born Masha Reva is an artist who is using fashion as her current medium, and absolutely killing it. After researching up on Reva I was confused as to why I hadn’t heard about her work earlier, she is a truly gifted being. Her website showcases all her work from videos, illustrations, photography and collections. Seeing her ‘merging’ 2012 collection I instantly knew what I wanted to share on this blog; the explosion of print, the styling, and the backdrops all work together to show off these incredible prints and garment shapes. It’s no secret that I love the use of prints to revive a design and Reva has highlighted how well a print can make a garment.
http://www.mashareva.com/main/index.php?/fashion/-/
http://www.mashareva.com/main/index.php?/fashion/-/
http://www.mashareva.com/main/index.php?/fashion/-/
http://www.mashareva.com/main/index.php?/fashion/-/
Images from http://www.mashareva.com/main/
