Concept: To evoke a sense of escapism through the idea of an ancient city represented in a different way that encourages others to think and rediscover what they might overlook to redefine their concept of beauty.
BERNICE CHUA VENICE
(Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore) My BA collection began with a trip to Venice where the small details of the architecture caught my interest: the cracks and erosion of the bricks, the gold mosaics and the pigeons in the courtyards. I broke the elements down and reversed the emphasis from the architecture on to the pigeons, using their wing shapes as inspiration for garment details and prints. I then incorporated the architecture of Venice into the garments as supporting details. For example, Byzantine gold became gold piping and gold foiling. The target market is women aged 25–35 who work in the creative industries (e.g. designers, journalists and editors), with a monthly disposable income of US$4000. I have aimed for a sartorial style that is sophisticated, elegant and highly individualistic. The main competing labels include Chloé, Marni, Jonathan Saunders, Miu Miu, Christopher Kane, Giles Deacon and Phillip Lim.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure’s rise As from the stroke of the enchater’s wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O’er the far times, when many a subject land Look’d to the winged Lion’s marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles. — Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron), Childe Harold (canto IV, st. I)