Textures Like Broken Wood

The last few posts (from Wednesday on) were based on my current researches on surface elaborations. This one moves from the same theme, but, rather than looking at surfaces in knitting, it focuses on a comparison between a natural material – wood – and some pieces from Balmain's Spring/Summer 2013 menswear collection. So, let's analyse things in order: the fallen tree in these pictures is the tallest and oldest Monteray pine in Scotland that came down through a storm in January.

The tree is currently still lying in the grounds around Kelburn Castle and, while it's a complete shame to see it like that, an amazing resinous smell of aromatic amber powerfully lingers in the air around the tree, making you feel as if you were in a magically enchanted place.

There were two garments in Olivier Roustein's S/S 13 menswear collection for Balmain – a khaki Spencer and a long jacket with round shoulders, both in hand-woven raffia and allegedly inspired by café chairs in Havana – that made me think about the texture and colour of the broken trunk of the Monteray pine.

Wood prints often appeared in fashion collections here and there, but these particular garments also made me think about the use of timber in sustainable buildings made with fir, redwood, oak and larch such as the Robert Burns Museum in Alloway, Ayrshire, or the ECOSpace sustainable development centre at Carnegie College, Dunfermline, Fife. In fact it would actually be interesting to research how certain contemporary timber structures could be used as inspirations for both garments and accessories (I'm sure that such buildings would lead to interesting results also for what regards jewellery and shoes…).