THE FALL WINTER 2020 COLLECTION
The conception of this collection began as a celebration of the humanity and artistic developments where East meets West and where these two cultures mutually benefit from one another.
In specific, we were vastly intrigued by the arts of late 15th century Persia, during the Safavid dynasty. One particular artwork, “Birds and Beasts in a Flowery Landscape” by Mohammad Siah Qalam. This beautiful piece, masterfully painted with meticulous ink strokes on paper, became the starting point for our visual narrative. We took it into our own hands to reiterate this piece and adapt into a fashion print. In doing so, we decided that we could not truly modernize this piece if it were not to address a modern issue. In our case, this was the rapidly diminishing population of the Asiatic Cheetah, a wild animal originating in Iran but belonging to the world. Thus, we added an abstracted imagery of the cheetah into the print.
Our FW20 prints all started out completely hand drawn with various mediums such as ink, soft pastels and collage. They were then further digitally manipulated, recolored and edited to create our own modern poetic fantasy. We then printed our custom patterns on the finest silks and jacquards. We approached our knitwear with the same sense of meticulous craftsmanship. Both our debut knit items were entirely hand-knit out of fine merino wool made by the Beberavi Women’s Center. This center is am empowerment oasis for 100 women in Kenya. The center has trained these women to become experts in many crafts so they not only care for their families but also uplift many others in their village. It will take one woman 24 hours to make one sweater.
In terms of garment silhouettes, we were enchanted by the volume and drama integral not only to the historic West, but also in the Persian nomadic tribal costumes. In other pieces, we contrasted this romantic attitude with minimal, crisp geometric shapes to create the perfect balance for minimalist silhouettes with maximalist attitudes.
With this collection, we hope to have created wearable art that is modern yet timeless; fashionable yet practical.
