Surface texture is the criterion that controls the quality of a surface. The texture of a fashion design has a visual and functional value and, quite often, surface texture and form go hand in hand.
Design duo Giulia Astolfi and Carolina Russo, among the finalists of the "Feel the Yarn" 2013 competition, focused their attention on surface texture for their knitwear designs, trying to find a way to transform knits into architectural materials and employ them to create new shapes and silhouettes.
Graduates from the Rome-based Accademia di Costume e di Moda, Astolfi and Russo employed yarns by Industria Italiana Filati, and experimented with a variety of effects, playing with roughness, printing, sculpting, embossing, burning and cracking, and creating a modern visual aesthetic that challenges conventional forms, suggesting more powerful shapes and silhouettes based on architextures, that is on construction and material texture.
How did the selection process to take part in the "Feel the Yarn" competition work for you?
Carolina Russo: This was the first year the Accademia di Costume e di Moda in Rome was asked to take part in this event. We graduated in fashion design this year, presenting our collection in January during the AltaRoma showcase, but we previously participated in other fashion-related events, like Riccione Moda Italia with our knits. So the Accademia selected us and our colleague Giulia Tesoriere for "Feel the Yarn".
Which was the starting point behind your collection?
Giulia Astolfi: The main theme of the competition focused on dressing, wrapping and adorning the body, so our collection moved from the body, considered as the key to unlock each design.
Are there any references to art or architecture behind your collection?
Carolina Russo: We moved from a contemporary Peruvian artist, Cecilia Paredes, who works on camouflage, carrying out a peculiar research about individuality. She basically paints with floral motifs a surface, then she paints her body and takes pictures of herself with the wall behind her. We had a sort of double interest in Paredes: rather than escaping from reality like many other artists do, she tries to find her own individuality and her own place in this world, and this was the first message that struck us; the second element that interested us from a visual point of view was her emphasis on surfaces. We loved the idea of working with surfaces, so we decided to approach knitwear without researching the stitches, but from the point of view of surface, creating thin smooth knitted fabrics and then elaborating them. We sort of substituted the stitch research with a research about forms and surfaces, using the prints in some cases to give a sense of visual dynamism to the silhouettes.
Can you tell us more about the way you decided to showcase your designs?
Carolina Russo: There is a logic progression behind our designs: the first dress comes in a neutral colour hinting at the possibility of camouflaging or fusing with the body. The dress was hidden behind a digital printed panel. We actually made all the drawings for our digital prints as well. As we gradually moved onto the other two designs the emphasis on surfaces became more tangible: in the first design we had regular modules that became irregular in the second design, creating voluminously ample and irregular situations in this piece. The third design is characterised by more experimental surfaces, from burnt ones inspired by Burri, to cracked effects.
Did you require the help of any textile companies to make these effects?
Giulia Astolfi: No, we did them all by hand, using artisanal techniques also when it came to doubling the knitted fabric with neoprene and then printing upon it. There are also precise stylistic reasons behind every element we decided to include: for example, the edges were left frayed in some cases as a formal choice and not to simplify our designs and make things in a quicker way.
Will the designs be exhibited anywhere else?
Giulia Astolfi: They will be donated to the yarn companies that supplied the materials to make them. There are plans for the creations to actually go on tour in Beijing and Hong Kong for an event organised by Ornella Bignami, who's also behind the Feel the Yarn competition.
What plans do you have for the future?
Giulia Astolfi: I'm going to intern at Valentino, in the knitwear department.
Carolina Russo: And I have an interview at Valentino as well, but for an internship at the menswear department.
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