NIHL

There is something very glam rock about this year's MA graduate collections in both London Central St Martins and Parsons. However it is often flavoured with something else. Neil Grotzinger (NIHL) graduate collection for Parsons, with its embellished sheer fabrics also reminded me of pop at, in particular Roy Lichtenstein's works decorating the skin with line and pattern. 

"It's about breaking the masculine façade, there's these ideas associated with functionality, certain expectations, that didn't even exist in the first place." Neil Grotzinger

Dress and Emotion

'Dress & Emotion is a research project funded by Parsons The New School for Design that seeks to explore the emotional and sensory act of dressing.  The images presented here aim to investigate themes of body image, identity/self-curation, representation and the messaging of dress:
How do we see ourselves? What comes first? The Body, the image we seek to create or does one create the other? Are we dressing a body Image that is real or imagined? Do we see dress as a uniform, persona, provocation or protection?' 

The first stage of this project funded by Parsons The New School for Design has identified 'Outliers', people whose personal dress has evolved into a distinctive unique symbolism. Each of these individuals curated six looks that reflected their identities.
The project is to make us think about the language of our 'costume' what are we communicating with our clothes and do we achieve this?

STEiNUNN

 Ruffled, full textured and dramatic head pieces and garments by Icelandic designer Steinunn Sigurðardóttir's label STEiNUNN. Steinunn on returning to her native Iceland after studying in New York has seen the Island in a new way noticing the unnoticed and seeking her heritage.

I"n everything I do, I always work with the texture, it is from Icelandic lava, Icelandic stones" Steinunn Sigurðardóttir

Claudia Li

Claudia Li is a designer who has just graduated from Parsons New School, New York. Here are some images from her graduate MFA collection called Origin, which has incredible silhouette and texture.

"The starting point of my collection was my birthplace, a very small rural area by Lake Dongting in China. This collection marks both my origins, as well as the origin of the technique I developed, which I call “roving.” While I was born in a small town in China, I lived in Singapore and then New Zealand as a child, studied in Beijing and London as an undergraduate, and now live in New York. The collection is very focused on experimental pattern making, creating new shapes and new silhouettes. To me, rather than making garments, I was sculpting with fabric." Claudia Li