AD-DRESSING DIALOGUES IN FASHION & ARCHITECTURE

Curator

Ms. Vivien Brandl-Klingbacher / Mr. Andreas Spiegl

Designer

BRADARIC OHMAE, DMMJK, EVA BLUT, GON, HOUSE OF THE VERY ISLAND’S…, MESHIT, MOTO DJALI, NATURES OF CONFLICT, SIGHT LINE, WERKPRUNK

SPECIAL GUEST: EDWINA HÖRL

Category

Women’s / 8 brands, Unisex / 1 brand, Bag / 2 brand and others

Brand information / About the designer

―What inspired you to become a fashion designer? Describe developments leading up to the brand launch.

The project “AD-DRESSING: Dialogues in Fashion and Architecture” is inspired by a spectrum of young and contemporary designers in Austria, reflecting cultural and social transformations in their design. Most of old sterotypes of women and men, of sexual identities, and national cultures have expired in order to welcome a heterogenous and hybridized culture based on migration and transcultural movements.

―What is the brand’s concept? What do you want to communicate through fashion designing?

It was a demand of gender-politics to get rid of the distinctions between men and women just on the basis of the biological sexes. It turned out that the stereotypes of sexual differences have been a product of cultural and social constructions and power mechanisms, defining the modes of dressing and next to it the modes of behavior and horizons of personal developments. It is fascinating to see the young designers’ work breaking up these sterotypes: It is less a question of uni-sex but of a perforation of the sexualized stereotypes as such. What matters is the variety of identifications even within the notions of men and women, a moment of diversities within the individual person. That is, what the “dialogue in fashion” is about.

―What is your source of inspiration in creating fashion? What is your process of developing a design concept?

The inspiration of the project is fed by the contemporary everyday-life and the shift of paradigms in the horizon of diversities and hybridizations. Fashion is listening to those developments and trying to find a form for them, a mode of language that is enabling the individual to articulate its desires. Fashion can offer the paradox to let a person find something that it didn’t know before, Fashion means the possibility to find something at first and then to realize that one has been looking for it without knowing. Afterwards you know what you have been looking for.

―Who are your current stockists (areas, retail formats, etc.)? Describe the typical followers of your brand.

The project offers a variety of 10 labels, so implicitly addressing a spectrum of people beyond the mode of typification. The typical follower is the one following typically his or her own decisions and brave enough to even change a decision, ot enter a dialogue of diverse types.

About 2015-16 A/W collection

―Why have you chosen Tokyo (or MBFWT) as the venue for presenting your collection?

MBFWT is the perfect stage for entering a vivid field of artistic practices and forms, a lifely option to European codes and standards. It is not only a question of an Asian market but of a transcultural interest practiced by the MBFWT. MBFWT offers the chance of a synopsis, a point of reference for an orientation in contemporary developments. It is the chance to face the intensity of design within a few days of intensity.

―What is the concept / image for your brand’s 2015-16 A/W season?

AD-DRESSING will present a few examples of the forthcoming season embedded in the labels’ actual production. The idea is to offering more information by contextualizing the new collection in the line of recent ones, like threads in time, weaving sensitivities for the developments at stake.

―What is your vision for your show / installation?

We have invited Ryo Abe, a Toyko based architect to design the display for our presentation in a unique location, the LIGHT BOX STUDIO in Aoyama. The architectural concept is analogue to the fashion designers’ approach: The display is including elements of dialogues in the question of the material and the design of space. Architecture is less a house with an inside and an outside but more of a filter, mediating notions of space, if you like: an interface. You will find a dress addressed at our address “AD-DRESSING”.

Future

―What are your brand’s future outlook and goal?

Including 10 different labels in our project it is difficult to say: The common main question will be how to insist on the quality and freedom of design, how to respond to a global market and the quality of diversity, how to propel the benefits of social and ecological awareness in the modes of production.

About TOKYO

―What does Tokyo represent for you?

For us, Tokyo is a vivid, lively and vibrand city. The idea of fashion in Tokyo is very openminded and allows all kinds of experiments without having the feeling for ‘failing’.

―Which parts / sites of Tokyo do you like most? Why?

Shitamachi, small, narrow sheets with lots of vegetable and fish markets, where you can do your everyday shopping..

―What are your favorite / recommended shops (of any genres, e.g. fashion stores, homeware stores, food services), facilities and sites?

Desperado, Opening ceremony, Ramenya of Sanae san in Kyodo…