Nowadays we all get easily attracted (and distracted…) by everything that is visually striking: a bright graphic design on a poster in the street; a cool NFT with glowing shapes, moving curves and shifting colours; a clever artwork producing illusions of volume and depth or a fashion design covered in shining sequins and glittering crystals.
We love everything that blings, shines and mutates colours, a kaleidoscope of inputs that hit the retina letting the information flow into the brain like a liquid drug. But then we forget about something important – small, tiny details. We have indeed learnt how to overlook them, in the same way we have learnt to neglect punctuation, something that many of us, especially younger generations, nowadays consider the secret Morse code of an ancient civilization based on complex writing techniques.
But, as architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said (probably borrowing the motto from German art historian Aby Warburg, who stated "The good God is in the details"), "God is in the details". Disregarding this principle, instead, has recently become the norm in many different disciplines. Yet, those creative minds willing to spend more time on details, often turn this practice into an integral part of their identity, into what distinguishes them from the amateurs and ultimately elevates what they do.
This has always been the case with Yeohlee Teng: in her designs she always favoured mathematical precision and attention to details to create sober and timeless pieces.
As stated above, in fashion we are usually more easily attracted by designs that immediately strike us visually for their colours or appliqued elements; pieces that look sharp and architectural or that are based on clever patterns, like Teng's, often do not get rave reviews because it takes more time to absorb their essence. They must indeed be carefully analysed, studied or even tried on to understand their value.
This is definitely the case with Teng's collections: her philosophy has always focused on materials and on taking into account the weight, texture and colour of a fabric. The designer has also been a pioneer of the currently trendy zero-waste philosophy and of inclusivity as well (she was the first to design decades ago iconic zero-waste, one-size-fits-all capes).
All these reasons won her a permanent place in the collection at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where the late curator Richard Martin called her, "One of the most ingenious makers of clothing today."
Rather than giving out notes about her Autumn/Winter 2022-23 collection, Teng offered the press Martin's brief essay about the designer, mentioning the "Energetics: Clothes and Enclosures" exhibition (Aedes Gallery, Berlin, 1998; the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, 1998) in which Teng's designs were juxtaposed to the work of architect Ken Yeang.
Clothes should be functional and sheltering, but also clever for Teng, hence the designer always had a firm belief in mathematics. Perfect numbers result in perfect shapes, indeed. This means that even something as simple as a poncho may spell disaster if made with the wrong measurements. In Teng's A/W 22 collection, instead, a perfect square led to the perfect poncho integrating meticulously calculated fringes, while a single yard of fabric was used to make an electric blue boiled wool coat.
Fabrics from previous collections were repurposed and turned into new garments that at times achieved also a transformative quality about them like her pewter silk lame pants with ties around the lower leg portions that allow the wearer to adjust them as they wish or like the bi-coloured sky blue and black fringe cape that changes shape (Teng's capes are often based on her iconic and timeless designs). Talking about shape-shifters, the collection also featured a circle skirt characterized by black-and-white horizontal and vertical stripes that created an Optical Art effect.
What's next for Teng? In interviews she sometimes mentioned scientific advances made at the MIT where researchers have been working on growing actuators and sensors or experimenting with innovative fabrics. Teng seems to be fascinated by the possibility of growing fabrics and it would be marvellous to see if, at some point, she could be involved in a high-tech experiment that could take into account issues such as climate change and the development of a super modern wardrobe for the future. You can be sure that, if Teng were at the helm of such a project about growing fabrics, there would be no lost harvest.
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