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Lilia Yip recently received her MA in Fashion Womenswear from the Royal College of Art, and is currently based in London. She hopes to carry out a sustainable fashion practice that will balance aesthetics and ethics. “I am always interested in people- their faces, their feelings and stories. How can I understand them better and tell my own story in the process?”
THE DESIGN
Credits: KimberlynQ (Designer and Styling), David Lee (Photographer), Celine Tan (Art Direction and Styling), Taiki Ogawa and Etsuyo Nishida (Hair), Jenny Combs and Cat (Makeup), Lizzie (Model).
Kimberlyn Quek is an all-in-one fashion designer, trained in sketching, design, pattern-making, cutting, and sewing. In March 2005, she was awarded the First Prize (Pattern Cutter Category) at the TCT Teenage Cancer Trust (UK) Charity Fashion Show, while reading her course at the London College of Fashion.
“We were asked to incorporate the TCT logo (3 little men hand in hand) in our design. My idea was to deconstruct and reconstruct.” Kim explains. “The process of making this design, speaks about what the teenage cancer patients are going through. The fabric is a wool blend knit. First, I created the silhouette of the graphic irregularly by sandwiching the fabric with quilt. After that, I trimmed along the stitch lines for every single piece and hand stitched them together, one by one, to form a kimono gusset cropped jacket.”
In case you still haven’t read our ‘about’ section, I like T-shirts. 24-year old graphic designer, Budi Satria Kwan, provides people like me, with a nice line up of some sharp and aesthetically deft designs. He just came out with a powerful new print entitled Perversion of Paranoid Populace, which looks nothing short of rad.
“I like putting out T-shirt designs,” Budi beams. “I have a set of buttons in front of me which I push repeatedly to create drawings. Books help too, but mostly it is about the buttons. The PPP design (above) is inspired by a blog I read earlier, written by a woman who lives in the USA. She made a point about how much privacy is left after satellite imaging programs like google streetviews enable people from around the world to watch every single thing which is happening on the face of the earth. In a way it is cool, but on the other hand, we all have a defined line where we prefer things to be undisclosed.”
Take a look at more solid designs on Budi’s site.
Paperdoll Collection. Click image for more views.
At little while ago, I met the lovely Yilin Lu from upcoming label Yumumu. She was wearing a dress which was so fresh, pretty and sunny that I was instantly smitten. That alone was reason enough for me to go and check out her recently launched website.
Yilin graduated from Slade School of Fine Art in 2004, and is currently teaching Art in a public school. “My lack of formal training in fashion allows me to present a fresh take on garment-making,” she says. “My fascination with fashion began when I realized that everything that fashion stands for is overrated and underrated for very different reasons.”
Yilin enjoys moulding, draping and sculpting garments that bring alive the peculiarities of the wearer, drawing her inspiration not from fleeting trends but shifting ideas that are often overlooked. “Fashion designs are usually first conceived flat on paper. My Paperdoll collection (above) strives to retain that flatness. I’ve tried to avoid distender of any kind – pleats, gathers, etc. – to emphasize the intrinsic flatness of fabric, so much so that they have come to resemble the flatpack lifestyle we are familiar with. The simple form is reminiscent of the shift dresses of the 60′s. I am fascinated by how the flat garment radically transforms as it falls against the contours of the human body.”
THE DESIGN
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Born in 1986, Josephine Xie graduated from LaSalle-SIA College Of The Arts with a Diploma in Fashion Design. About her Autumn/Winter 07-08 collection, Josephine says, ” I move with the minority, dominated by the right. I choose to live in my own world, second out by the norm. I hate routines and I make things that have no sense. I love my messy room and I never like cleaning up. I love pictures and I’m horrible with words. I’m good at misplacing things and I never remember why. I don’t define luxury by money or cars. I love roller coasters but I hate rules. I saved anything I think I might use one day and I love to pile.”
Josephine’s is putting the finishing touches to her Spring/Summer 08-09 collection, which will be available late October. “We are often confined into a space created by ourselves,” she explains. “When tempt provoked, where do we stand? My collection questions the being of human forms as opposed to what we have already created for ourselves. Men are women. Women are men. When it’s homeostatic, where is the difference?”
Utter Designs are available from Front Row, Level3.
23-year old Timothy Lee obtained his Diploma in Fashion Design from LaSalle-SIA College Of The Arts.
This is the story behind his Autumn/Winter 07-08 collection (above). “I once met a girl who lived in a refrigerator. She told me her name was “Refrigerator Girl”. She explained that it was constantly cold in the ice-box, like a continuous winter, but she liked it that way. She often played pretend, imagining she was of Inuit Eskimo lineage. And amongst others things (like tasting the different flavors of ice cream and soaking herself in chilled chocolate & strawberry fresh milk), she plays with ice cubes, building igloos of different sizes out of them. And she doesn’t ever get bored, because she hides and secretly smiles when someone opens the refrigerator door and doesn’t see her there.”
“Slacking with the slack-to-crats-boys-and-girls” is the title of Timothy’s Spring/Summer 08-09 collection. “The collection is about clothes for “hanging around” in town,” Timothy clarifies. “Clothes for boys who will be boys, and clothes for girls that will be girls. The story is poetic and lyrical, where colors play an exciting game with minor details peeking around and polite styles making whoopee with eccentricity.”
n.nchal.nt Designs are available from Front Row, Level3.
Click image from more collection pieces.
Winner of the 2007 Singapore Fashion Designers and the Asian Young Fashion Designers Contest, Chia Wei Choong’s re-invention of the male silhouette has made him an exciting young designer to look out for. His Autumn/Winter 07-08 collection (above) titled, ‘Serotine’ was part of the Blue Print show at this year’s Fashion Festival.
Chia Wei Choong is currently working on his Spring/Summer 08-09 collection which, in the designer’s own words, “is a recollection of historic costumes, but decomposing the ideologies and than reconstructing them again through a filter. Bits of information but never fully comprehensible, with a strong emphasis on the volumes and shapes. There is also a certain ’roundedness’ in my designs, and I choose a clean muted palette to fully allow the impact of the silhouettes to come through.”
Ode,
as we head deeper into unknown times,
as the world around us seems like it is about to crumble and give up,
perplexities of life obscure the goodness and happiness,
just before we let the fear overwhelm our beings,
just before we lose our beliefs,
just before we lose our history,
let us celebrate, the past, present and definitely the future,
for a future full of unknowns,
is a chance to make new histories.
Antebellum Designs are available from Front Row, Level3.
THE DESIGN
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Teo Ying Hui was born in 1977 and graduated from the Raffles Design Institute with a Diploma in Fashion Design. Her Autumn/Winter 07-08 collection (above), inspired by a yearning for solitude, was based on being and nothingness. The designer explains, “Does existentialism justify our being, or is the nothingness a better rationalization? We are defined by the voids in life and at the same time, we are seeking freedom from our consciousness. Taking a simplified and abstract look at these thoughts, my collection attempts to uncover how isolation inspires the route to self-actualization.”
For her Spring/Summer 08-09 women’s collection, Teo Ying Hui found inspiration in nostalgia and dreams, and in objects that evoke a sense of familiarity and belonging; old toys, cracked paint, vintage fabrics, wooden benches and dusty books. “Through the random linkage of these objects and haphazard episodes in my dreams, I imagine new clothes for the passer-by in my dreamscapes.”
DemiSemi Designs are available from Front Row, Level3.
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Culturepush tracks cool stuff in art, culture and design in Singapore.
What's happening in Singapore
This annual series of presentations on design showcases objects, products, interiors, landscapes and architecture. It aims to promote awareness of the excellence of local design; provide a platform for designers to interact with students, educators, practitioners and users; and share new design perspectives and solutions devised to meet the emerging and evolving needs of changing lifestyles. Dialogue with Poetry, Innovation & Ecology by Look Boon Gee. 20 Sep, 7:30-9pm at Filmgarde Iluma. Click here for tickets.
- #On Friday, 3 September, FICKLE GORILLA brings the very best in electronic music to the real party people. The Little India launch Party will see the old brick walls of the Post Museum crumble and shake under the explosive beats of DARKWING & RTYPE. Combining house, breaks, funk, disco and dubstep, the curious ying-yang symmetry of these two artists will be flicking all your switches and have you smashing up the dance floor as they tag-team their tunes throughout the night. For this special launch event - DARKWING will be teaming up with drummer & brother-in-alms HORATIUS for a first taste of DARKWING LIVE – An assault of the funkiest, creamiest, rocking dance music floor stompers, set to electronic percussive wizardry. Adding to the chaos are Niko dishing out wicked hip hop tunes and Submerge and Presha of Meshradio notoriety bring their breed of drum & bass and dubstep to our little music feast. As well as the music, FICKLE GORILLA will provide the last chance for Punters to take a look at pieces from Post Museum's most recent exhibit 'Shape Of My Heart', which features artworks reflecting what Singapore means to a selection of Singaporeans. Capacity for the event will be very limited so you will need to be early for this one. Free Flow Champagne and vodka 10pm-12am. Entry to the event is free.
- #The annual MFO Girl DJ Bootcamp is back for the 3rd time in 2010 at new venue, Zouk. Held every Saturday at 1pm – 7pm from 2 October to 16 October, the Bootcamp incubates aspiring girl DJs into the art of DJing. The Bootcamp costs $380 and is by application only, with a class size limited to 12. Featuring local luminaries, 2010’s lecture lineup includes: The Analog Girl, Ginette Chittick, Brendon P, Jean Reiki and Ko Flow among others. They, together with the Bootcamp’s organisers, Debbie Chia, Natalie Pixi[e]dub and Cherry Chan, will induct the participants into topics such as DJing formats, equipment knowledge, beat matching and DJing etiquette. Practical sessions ensure hands-on experience using equipment such as turntables, CDJs and Serato. This year also features the Bootcamp’s first international guest lecturer from Los Angeles, USA: TOKiMONSTA (Jennifer Lee). For more information, please email: debbiechia@gmail.com. To apply, please download the application form here and email to girldjbootcamp@gmail.com by 12 midnight, 22nd September 2010.
- #Get your portrait drawn in 20 mins at the OIC Portrait Day. 4 Sep, 2pm-7pm at MAAD.
- #In "Breathe Again", the artist Christina Chua continues to expand the boundaries of art-making with the use of thread to create marks. Her belief that simple stitches can form dots, then lines in continuous form, suggests suffocation, growth and extreme fragmentation. This act and use of such feminine material creates a density that disorientates vision and provokes a feeling of suspension, and enclosure: a holding of breath. Li...ke the growth of plants and flowers, Chua’s works appropriate abstract images to illustrate the transformation of the self. 3 - 22 September 2010. Gallery opens from daily (excluding Mondays and public holidays), 10am - 6pm. Venue: LASALLE TriSpace, B1-05.
- #One of the most sought after Noise Singapore programmes each year, The Apprenticeship Programme (TAP) has helped dozens of talented young artistes through the personal guidance and mentorship by some of Singapore’s biggest names in photography, design, music and illustration. Now, you too can undergo a 10-week personal mentorship under these luminaries, and gain a leg-up into the creative industries. Besides the amazing opportunity to learn first-hand from these industry veterans’ experiences, you’ll also get the rare chance to be a part of real-life industry projects, and even network with other prominent names in the industry. What’s more, Art & Design and Photography apprentices will have their TAP project showcased at the Noise Festival Showcase in Feb 2011, while Music apprentices will record one song professionally and perform on the big stage during Noise Singapore Concerts at the Esplanade and at other venues. Applications Deadline: 5 Sep 2010. Click here for a full list of mentors and application details.
- #By its very nature, skateboarding is a political act - despite a proliferation of purpose built skate-parks, the street still remains the most popular venue for many skaters. Public and private spaces are reclaimed and re-designated as skaters use banked walls, kerbs, steps, handrails and pavements as the backdrop for their uniquely raw art form. This oppositional approach was the inspiration for a series of illustrated boards created by the students from the Design Communication programme at LASALLE in conjunction with some of the most exciting graphic artists and designers in Singapore. Adopting the language of graphic activism the designers involved have created works which aim to powerfully persuade visitors to reconsider their attitudes toward a range of contemporary issues. 26 August, 7pm at LASALLE, Earl Lu Gallery.
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