THE DESIGN

“Being very fascinated and interested in Japanese culture, my dress was born out of an adoration of the Japanese yukata or summer kimono,” says Fashion Design student Janis Nah. “I have always wanted to own a yukata as I find them supremely unique. So I decided to sew one for myself. I read up on yukatas and kimonos and how to wear them and decided to reinterpret the design and make a more wearable piece.”

Janis kicked up a soft pastel drop-waist dress, reserving the most surprising accent for the back: a playful obi bow. “This is to bring the attention towards the back of the dress with a simple design to complement it,” she explains. “I designed the dress with plus-size women in mind. By placing a big bow behind, the attention will be brought towards the back of the dress, playing down areas you want to disguise.” MORE »

THE DESIGN

Model: Dinara

Pablo Picasso once said ‘Beauty? To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.’

Young fashion designer Elvin Tan created a dress which he aptly named Extreme Beauty. ‘The design is inspired by people suffering in the name of beauty,’ he says. ‘In the pursuit of beauty there is pain. In the Victorian era it was the ultra-small waists, and corsets were used to painfully reshape a woman’s body. In Africa beauty required piercing and scarification. So, I believe beauty is an endless topic and the willingness of a person to suffer to achieve beauty will never change. People will always try to do something in order to achieve the standard of beauty, from eyebrow plucking to extreme plastic surgery. Anyway, nothing is beautiful or ugly in itself. Beauty lies in the beholder’s eye.’ MORE »

THE DESIGN

Photography: Marie Lee – Model: Jasmine – Make-up: Francine Zhang

‘Animasical is my very first complete collection,’ Kellie Koh explains, ‘I was inspired by The story of Noah’s Ark, and my little brother Aston’s drawings. Four animals are depicted: the Zebra, Giraffe, Tiger and Elephant. It all began when I discovered Aston’s love for drawing. One day, I happened to chance upon some drawings of animals seen through his scatterbrained imagination. I decided to use his fat butt zebra named Zeeton , his short necked Giraffe named Raffey, his cutesy pinkish tiger named Igton and his thinnish elephant named Eleton as the inspiration for my textiles, colour palate and the construction of my designs.’ MORE »

THE DESIGN

Josiah Chua Kian was one of the ten finalists of The Cuckoo Couture Design Awards organized by The Butter Factory. During the Awards show on Saturday he sent out an ornate Baroque dress that was as soft and angelic as it was meticulous and couture-like. Josiah explains, ‘I reverted to centuries-old fashion for inspiration and created a dress reminiscent of the Baroque era in order to convey a bold message. I extracted elements from culture and architecture, to give the dress an avant-garde look. Using the haute couture way of dress making, I produced a garment that oozes the expression of art in fashion.’ MORE »

What do Wet Dreams, Purity, Beautiful Distortion and Auschwitz Camp have in common? They’re among the Cuckoo Couture designs that will rule the runway at The Butter Factory this Saturday at 10.30pm. The Cuckoo Couture Design Awards is an annual infinitely quirky fashion event organized by The Butter Factory in conjunction with Singapore Fashion Week 2007.

Culturepush slips backstage for a peek at the eye-grabbing collection of kooky creations that were undeniably ‘fashion-as-art’. MORE »

Two Saturdays ago, I had a chance to pop around the Sole Obsession sneaker event at Know It Nothing. This was no ordinary exhibition, showcasing humble sneakers which you can pick up at a local retail space. I am talking one-of-a-kind, limited-edition kicks with attitude, for the die-hard sneakerphiliacs.

I found myself on pause and mouth agape at the utter brilliance of the fully customized cult kicks from master local pimps SBTG, Meth, Lazy, PhuEk!, Hypethetic, Ol’ Charlie’s, Republic Union, and Killer Gerbil, and guest pimps Darbotz (Indonesia), Spoonman (Malaysia) and Very Masa (Australia).

After the event, I sat down with Shaun of Hypethetic to get the full story on their custom puppies and the direction in which their brand is going. The name may be unfamiliar to most of you, but sneakerheads and people who are fashion forward in the street wear scene, most commonly recognize Hypethetic for their fabric outfitted sneaker creations. Read Up! MORE »

Not that I’m a T-shirt maven, but when I heard that BooksActually was hosting an exhibition of the Japanese T-shirt project Shikisai (co-presented by Crop Design), I decided to pop by to check it out for myself.

The exhibition promised “different possibilities of T-shirt design under the restrictions of ‘the black print on a white T-shirt’”. This translated into a display of 10-12 white T-shirts, each one adorned with a pencil-like black sketch with an additional element hand-sewn onto the garment. For instance, the very first design in the series was the “meta T-shirt”: a white-T-shirt, carrying a sketch of a T-shirt, with a tiny size tag sewn onto the drawn T-shirt. MORE »

It’s been about a month since the Graniph store opened at Bugis Junction and man, talk about being spoiled for choice.

T-shirts on hangers, T-shirts on shelves. Sure, there are duplicates because what you see on the hangers are also folded neatly and arranged by size on the wooden shelves. But the overall effect is still one of colour bursting out of every corner, not to mention the idiosyncratic art style Graniph has come to be known for, and smatterings of foreign languages (French and German predominate, though oddly enough the only Japanese to be seen is the text printed on the signs indicating the T-shirt prices). MORE »