As seen in previous posts, one of the main trends in fashion and textiles for the next year is sustainability, a theme urged in some ways by the gloomy and scary predictions about our planet and health if we do not act as soon as possible.
On the Paris Haute Couture runways Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren tried to transfomr such predictions into a positive feeling.
Their collection, entitled "Spiritual Glamour", started from the theme of casting a sort of positive spell that could radically transform the negative forces around us. Yet they didn't cast this spell by themselves, but turned for help to Claudy Jongstra.
The Dutch artist is known for the textiles she crafts with natural techniques and following the highest artisanal principles. Jongstra raises indeed rare Drenthe Heath sheep, shears their wool herself and then dyes them using botanical pigments taken from her organic garden.
Jongstra has recently focused on a research with the Belgian museum Hof van Busleyden and the Artechne Project (European Research Council), led by Sven Dupré (Utrecht University & University of Amsterdam) into the late Medieval colour black.
Together with various experts, Jongstra tried to reproduce the historical and natural colour technologies used in the 15th and 16th centuries (as highlighted in the colour-recipe books used by the old Dutch and Flemish masters for their paintings) and recreate Burgundian Black, a deep dark shade with red undertones.
Burgundian courts and cities attracted a wide range of knowledge and expertise in colour making and dyeing techniques as colour was very important to the Burgundian ruling class. Black was at the time associated with nobility, dignitaries, ruling power and mourning, and this dye was produced through a complex colour-making process.
The results of this multidisciplinary project are on view at the exhibition "Back to Black" at the Museum Hof van Busleyden (until June 2021), but they are also part of Viktor & Rolf's Haute Couture A/W 2019 collection.
The collection opened with a series of sculptural Burgundian Black and deep blue felt coats in a variety of voluminous shapes.
Jongstra's trademark woollen felt textures were employed to create wing-like ruffles and strong shoulders that framed the models' bodies.
The deep black shades, the nocturnal nuances and occasional embroideries of black cats and owls framed by large and small embroidery hoops on dresses and skirts (almost to symbolise a work-in-progress) hinted at witches, maybe metaphorically referring to the fact that Jongstra has acquired throughout the years a secret and mysterious knowledge, discovering long-lost processes based on ancient recipes that call to mind magic positions.
Jongstra's textiles are usually thick and dense and they were employed to create interesting tactile ad visual effects (see a blue night cape evoking Van Gogh's "Starry Night"). Some of these designs looked slightly Victorian and a bit costumy, and they wouldn't have looked out of place in the wardrobe of Anathema Device in Douglas Mackinnon's adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens".
As the runway progressed, the night gave way to light and nocturnal animals and moons were replaced by large butterflies and colourful patchworked images of a bright sun over a landscape. At times the technique evoked traditional quilts, at others it pointed at art and in particular at the works Gustav Klimt produced during his Golden Phase.
Yet art wasn't important here as the main aim of the collection (that was reminiscent here and there of other V&R collections for effects, motif and silhouettes) was indeed thinking about the process and production behind these designs and about the possibility of introducing a more naural approach in Haute Couture as well.
The idea was not extremely new maybe as this is not the first time Jongstra's materials appeared in a runway show. Her studio worked indeed on a special collaboration with Maison Margiela by John Galliano for the Artisanal Collection A/W 2018-19, a piece hand-felted to pattern provided by the maison in a custom crafted indigo dye palette from Jongstra's biodynamic dye garden in the Northern Netherlands.
Yet, despite V&R seemed to borrow the idea of getting Jongstra's on board from another maison, involving the textile artist in a high fashion collection was an intriguing way to remind us that couture has always been a laboratory, and that, hopefully, it will turn into a laboratory of sustainability for other designers as well.
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