Spring/Summer 18

‘invisible vision’

This season, it was more about the approach than a story. It was about making the unattainable within reach. Really thinking about lifestyles and how to maximize on value. The right side of my brain was in the lead this time, breaking it down - problem solving, product range, price points. We were in construction mode; we were building a business and building a team, getting all those foundations in. Instinctually, maybe to offset all that logic, I started looking at old-school couture. When things were slower, more perfect, more art. The volumes, the inner structures, the hand finishings - all that soul. While designing this collection, we were also the busiest we ever were with making bespoke dresses, where the goal was to make our clients look beautiful. One identity crisis I have as a designer is that where I live, all the clients I see are more evening wear focused. But here we are building a ready-to-wear business, where buyers in the West and in Asia are more focused on separates. It's funny because the contrast of those two markets, or those two conflicting attitudes is what really pushed us to find our voice. The hybrid of intelligent, cool, sexy evening wear separates is one of our defining qualities.

As a woman, I am always contemplating the context of clothes, how it fits into my life, and how I can create value. True value. My approach was to take the best of couture and make it so I can wear it to dinner - so I took the dresses I was designing and just cut them in half. Corsetry, exposed boning, volume, silk taffetas: all these fussy elements recontextualized. Suddenly, everything I believed in aligned. We focused on creating evening separates and elevated daywear. Clothes for women who are comfortable crossing lines and changing direction, remixing and recontextualizing their favorite pieces as their mood or occasion dictates. This approach led to elegant tops that walked the tightrope between formal and casual wear. Waists were left open to reveal the boning of the corset, offering a peek to the inside.

To amplify these extremes, I married these shapes in a super internet colour palette: html ice blue, internet purple, synthetic bubblegum pink. In the end, a print we developed most neatly summed up the collection: a double-headed rabbit, always doing two things at once, in a constant state of duality.