Bone appétit

MANILA, Philippines - A concept is the soul of a good design. This is what Aurora A/W collection and  the Swatch Full-Blooded collection are all about: to embody the symbolic odyssey of men and women towards a new dawn known as “Aurora.”

You could see it as a symbolic story about the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. This represents society’s clamor to grasp deeper ideas within its consciousness — a journey inside oneself, towards one’s own thoughts and character.

Details of the clothes as well as the watches are related directly to this idea where the focus is mainly on the surface of the designs. The clothes explore textures, while the watches are bold in terms of color.

The highly-detailed knit forms clad the mannequins with an odd sort of beauty, highlighting the wire skulls. The watches, in their full-blooded colors, rest inside them like a blinding idea waiting to be cracked open.

The skull leads the audience into feeling and realizing there is something far greater than what we see and can appreciate in the mantle. The anatomical sculpture of the skulls gives us a glimpse of what lies further within our persona. As we look at the watches inside the frame of each sculpture, we are reminded to look within ourselves, to marvel at the inner beauty of our imagination and consciousness.

This exhibit, more than a visual tool to express a given concept, was mainly put up to provoke an emotional and mental outburst. The installation was designed to peel off the surface and reveal the core — what it is really all about.

Here is a rundown of the fabrics and materials: woven cotton, knitted cotton, faux fur laminated with rubber compound, sea grass and leather for shoes and hats, frayed silk fibers for the shawls and carabao/ox horn for buttons.

As far as technique goes, special knitting and hand-smocking or surface-draping techniques were employed especially for the knitted pieces. The extended cardigans were knitted in crochet and open-point Elle patterns, creating dimension and texture for the knits. Raw cotton yarn was also woven together with the knit strokes in order to achieve the extra-long fringes on the extended cardigans and hooded vests. To reference a crafty look, natural materials like carabao/ox horn for the buttons were used to contrast the softness of the cotton pieces.

The tops and the pants were constructed in a modern way yet still referencing a clean, basic look. Shirts were cuffed; same with some of the trousers. To achieve a clean yet formal look without channeling the ordinary shirt-and-suit tandem, the tops were patterned to look like suits complete with vents at the back. This is to dissuade the wearer from tucking in the shirts as well as to add comfort and ease and yet elegance to the pieces.

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The Aurora A/W collection and the Swatch Full-Blooded collection are on view at the Swatch interactive Billboard in Greenbelt 5, Makati City.

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