Marc le Bihan
French designer Marc le Bihan’s work is rooted in conceptual design to produce beautiful, timeless fashion, not transitory trends.
Barbara I Gongini
Avant-garde, Danish designer Barbara I Gongini is one of a group of designers that participated in Bright Green Fashion, a collaborative project spanning the borders of Berlin and Copenhagen, and showcasing sustainable fashion, as a means of striving for greater environmental and social responsibility within the fashion system. Gongini’s ongoing environmental concerns shape and direct her collections, sourcing most of her fabrics from organic sources, she produces the collection in fair trade conditions, recycles, and works towards safer production methods. Her aesthetic however, is far from granola, Gongini’s designs are slick but rough, urban, raw and powerful.
Disturbingly beautiful, ethereal and fantastic, Barabra I Gongini’s designs reference insect like beauty through their shape and texture. Totally black, bold in shape, varying in depth of texture and sheen, there is an infinite depth to her work; occasionally diversifying her color palette to incorporate all beige or white, but always monochromatic. Her wrapping, twisting, draping, shredding and eccentric cutting is magnificent. A true artist, using fashion as her medium, she designs for a post apocalyptic world. Minimal and complex at the same time, Gongini re-examines and reworks angular volumes and abstract forms. Androgynous in spirit, Gongini works with an interesting array of fabrics, including organic cotton, silk, fish, lamb and goatskin, waxed tulle, canvas, rubber and metal. Knitting and knotting plastic, as well as tattering furs, some items are painted with a layer that cracks and wears over time, to add to the eerie distressing of her designs.
Her catwalk shows are replete with a soundtrack of haunting digitized voices and repetitive chords, matted hairstyles and Matrix-like visual imagery projected in the background. Models look as if they should be participating in an end of the world, debauched celebration, or a lamentation of the destruction of nature.
Her fashion movies have to be watched, ethereal, dark, conceptual, provocative, they embody the spirit of the clothing with digitized imagery, and ink blot style photography, reminiscent of old black and white Bela Lugosi Frankenstein movies, or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, with a touch of The Fly thrown in for good measure; disturbing and alluring at the same time.
A devout protector of the environment, Barbara I Gongini presents a collection with striking androgynous appeal. Famous for her longstanding belief in ecological sustainability, she achieves seventy five percent use of ecological materials and methods, working with alternative means to achieve her goal, along with the more traditional ones of recycling. Her multifunctional garments are not seasonally bound, making more a statement to a belief and style than to a seasonal specific visual message. Completely shattering the myth that eco fashion is limiting, or that clothing made from ecological fibers is boring, ordinary and ugly; nothing could be further from the truth.
Nominated for the Danish Fashion Award Committees Ethical Award, she was also selected to represent Denmark at the Berlin Nordic Eco fashion and Product Design Exhibition in Berlin. Her clothing is available online through her website.
Website: www.barbaraigongini.dk
