although i have the greatest admiration for issey miyake, it doesn’t prevent me from adoring this fresh design innovation too.

This collection was inspired by the tweed fabrics used by Chanel, the straight silhouette of 1920?s flapper girls and 3-dimensional artworks by Anish Kapoor and Rachel Whitebread. The textile is the binding factor of the collection. It’s completely handmade, from recycled yarns woven one by one directly in the shape of the garment. Not wasting anything and making the garment including the cubes totally seamless as it’s woven 3-dimensionally. The yarns and base textile are production factory remnants or old fabrics and scraps taken apart. So the collection is sustainable. The cubes added are all in the same textile making the garments, that are based on very traditional ladies garments, into something more subversive and architectural/sculptural. The blocks themselves are very light, so they don’t distort the garment. Also often they’re attached to a pleated skirt allowing them to swoosh in movement making a seemingly static silhouette suddenly dynamic.’

Hellen van Rees AW 2012