BENJAMIN
RANDO
STUDENT BIO:
Some people dream in colour, but I dream in Couture.
COLLECTION STATEMENT:
In 1947, Christian Dior revolutionised fashion with the ‘New Look’. In the 1960’s Yves Saint Laurent shifted fashion history with the introduction of Prêt-à-porter. And in 1993 Lee Alexander McQueen sent models down the runway as Couture warriors. Displaced through time and place these legendary designers share one common thread: Women.
Women, have and will always be the starting point of great design. Evoking new ideas through shape, texture and colour, fashion is a living organism and that shifts with the ebbs and flows of time. During our time of social revolution, we must acknowledge our responsibility as designers to tell this story.
There has always been an intense relationship between art and fashion. Paralleled through material and conceptual practice, fashion has the ability to evoke human emotions in the same manner as fine art.
Del Kathryn Barton is a globally celebrated Australian artist. Del’s work celebrates and explores ideas of femininity and female identity. It is a great honour to have appropriated Del’s ‘and the little toe said…. listen, listen to the earth’ (2019, acrylic on French linen), within this collection. Completed in London, UK and created as a true testament to the savoir faire of haute couture, there is over 200 hours of hand tambour embroidery within this garment.
Likewise, there is over 300 hours of hand work in the application of individual ostrich feathers, custom dyed and imported from Italy. There is a particular type of romance that can be derived from the relationship one has with fashion. A deeply personal and sensual experience, this collection aims to examine the relationship between the female form and materiality through movement, colour and texture.
This collection is about Women.
