/ 16 AW /
the artificial promise
/ 16 AW / the artificial promise
THE ARTIFICIAL PROMISE is inspired by the voice of the people, the Vox Populi, against the organized interest and partisan propaganda of big government. George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, which confronts the unsettling subject matter of the unrelenting control of a governing body and the want of autonomy by its conscious citizens, serves as the starting point of this collection; while another source of inspiration comes from the current and very real events happening globally -- governments spying and invading the privacies of its own people. This collection asks the question:
How free, really, are we?
In an age where we have various outlets and virtual soap boxes from which to express our opinions, ostensibly unregulated, and where social media is fully embraced as part of our lives, we have to ask... have we just opened ourselves to be controlled by other means? Freedom, submission, transparency, coercion are all very abstract concepts... but words offer the means to meaning. So what do those words mean to you?
The collection reflects the contrasting emotions of the inspirations in the form of contemporary luxury women's street wear. The collection plays with numerous menswear references and visually restricting tailoring elements such as a high and tight turtleneck or skin tight sleeves. Stark visual contrasts such as exaggerated looseness versus tightness in one piece are used abundantly in the collection to illustrate the very question of, “Are we really as free as we think we are?” Original prints featuring vivid graphics, quirky texts and 2D rendering of plaids created by the designer are once again a key component in the collection. The collection features the designer’s strong usages of mixtures of colours and materials while incorporating a slightly more mature and muted colour palette. This season also sees the the designer’s first foray into menswear. As well as a slight steer into a new territory as the designer incorporates new techniques and materials while maintaining the essence of the ALEX S. YU aesthetic.