Puey Quiñones has dedicated his latest collection to a select, niche audience.
“This is for my haters,” he tells me.
A controversial year (thanks to a scandal involving a falsely labeled suit) helped shape the concept.
“I was ready again to face fashion,” he says. “That was my state of mind.”
“I told myself ‘I think it’s about time I face my fears.’ Ramon said I was ready to face my demons.”
Ramon Del Prado is Puey’s collaborator, an animator who cut his teeth studying 3D animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York on a Fulbright grant.
“Facing monsters is my way of showing people that I am not afraid of what they are going to say anymore. I have nothing to hide. No more skeletons in my closet,” Puey declares. “That’s why when Ramon suggested drawing dragons onto the garments I said yes right away.”
“In mythology, dragons, demons and monsters are there to torment the hero in his journey. These are most likely symbols of the battles and adventures that go on within ourselves,” Ramon explains. “In this case, they represent Puey taking control of his demons. Jusi provokes a symbolical contrast, almost like a yin and yang of sorts: the harsh fierce teeth, nails and scales of the dragons against the backdrop of the fragile clean white just.”
“Truthfulness and honesty” are the two elements Puey hopes to evoke in the collection. Light-as-air silhouettes emblazoned with a contorting figure of a dragon are the freshest things we’ve seen from the designer in a while. Perhaps his scandal-plagued year offered him a clean slate, a new beginning that served to invigorate what had become a flagging interest in fashion.
“This is about liberation and freedom,” he concludes. “There are only two things in the world people are scared of and want: being loved and being hated. I’ve experienced both and now I really don’t care anymore. At the end of the day, it’s myself and my creator that I want to please.”
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Contact the designer at 0916-7763098 or email pueyq@yahoo.com.