sarajevo fashion week: jan taminiau

(images via sfw)

jan taminiau is a dutch designer who obtained a master’s degree at the academy of art in arnhem, worked for olivier theyskens, and designed a window display at colette in paris.  (i honestly don’t know what the ado about the last two are, but fashionies, like, die if you mention them, thus i’m putting links for you to educate yourself.  feel no need to feel the love if it’s not there.  i think fashion’s too pretentious on this point.  digression!)

anyway, after such raging success, he launched his own couture collection in 2003, vacillating between paris & new york, fabulous-fabulousness that he is.  a pret-a-porter collection followed in 2008.  he finds his inspiration in antiques, interior design, and old-world craftsmanship of clothing. 

don’t get me wrong, for all his self-congratulatory website demeanor, i do like the clothes depicted here quite a lot.  they have an enticing mix of vintaged-contemporary about them and nice work with fading colors, kind of like those old victoriana books with flowery borders.  anyway, apparently it’s okay to like him as he “received glowing reviews from leading international fashion journalists”, okay? 

his lovely work speaks for itself and has a charming aura of french-ness that isn’t quite so stereotyped.  nice.

sarajevo fashion week: kristian aadnevik

(images via sfw)

the biography on norwegian designer kristian aadnevik’s website informs us that he “combines the technical knowledge of a skilled couturier with the charm of a screenwriter.”  to be fair, some other chick wrote that in an article, but i honestly can’t say i don’t believe i’d have the gumption to publish it on my own website.  but maybe that’s because i would rather describe my toy collection in my own bio than anything about actual credentials. 

he attended the royal college of art in london, worked for harrod’s, and began his own label in 2004.  (“earning at once the title of London’s ‘next big thing’”, he notes.)  he’s now under the guidance of donatella versace & claims that style.com lauded him as “one of the season’s most promising new talents“  (italics his), and though it has been liberally repeated, i wasn’t able to find the original quote.  hmm. 

his vision describes his clothing thus, “Kristian Aadnevik´s world is made of contrasts: the gothic and the romantic entangled in a sort of disco nightmare, a deliberately decadent atmosphere, sinfully innocent and encrusted with luscious details.”

his clothing is beautifully dark & textured, and perhaps that’s why it distresses me so to read all these liberal self-promotions.  sometimes it’s better to relax & let the clothes, the good work, speak for itself.  when you try to engulf me in a dragon’s tail-haze of boastful media, it takes the focus off what it should be on and makes me feel i’m not interested in someone cocky.  and that is a shame.  judging from the clothes. 

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sarajevo fashion week: haad

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henry jacobson-sarajevo style (2008)

sarajevo fashion week: ata omerbašić

(images via sfw)

ata omerbašić is a young designer from bosnia & herzegovina who lived in sarajevo during the bosnian war in the nineties.  recently she collaborated with photographer henry jacobson and a few other fashion designers, juxaposing clothes against the backdrops of war-scarred urban decay. 

her design philosophy informs us, “The ATA fashion line is intended for those who uses [sic] clothes not only to cover their body and protect it, but to express individualism and feelings toward environment surrounding them. Depending on intended use, the selection of fabric and cuts are harmonized with the machine and hand sawing techniques, and are unique to each piece of garment.”

perhaps it is just knowing what i do now, but to me her clothes evoke a sort of wartime mentality, as if they’ve been constructed using whatever was available at the time and worn in response to extremes life or the environment has thrown at the person…kind of like the pictures of soldiers draping scrap fabric over their heads to ward off the sun.

and in the beauty of the clothes, there is angst.  it’s certainly not a j.l.sark ‘let me just grab a diamond ring before lunch’ mentality intended to drown customers’ worries in fur and champagne.  instead, there’s a sort of struggle to get here, that the looks have a lot more behind them than just blatant luxury or letting everyone else know how much money one has.  and though many infinitely prefer the former in designer wear, this feels more an artwork with a story than just a conspicuous consumption piece. 

her choices of cuts are consistently interesting, not least because for the oddness, they’re still wearable.  probably in “regular life” one would want to soften these looks with the addition of bright color or something less statement-y to pair them with, but they’re beautiful and fantastic on the runway, too.  this is a young designer to watch.

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sarajevo fashion week: admir karišik