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Fashion: Wearable Art

Local fashion designers use unique materials to craft wearable fashions for Palo Alto Show

by Staff on Apr 23, 2010
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IN AN AGE when style takes its cue from overpriced branding seen in trendy fashion magazines, it’s refreshing to know there are still a few designers out there who find solace in originality, creativity and just plain old thinking outside the box. More than a dozen of the Bay Area’s brightest indie designers will be bringing their clothing, jewelry and accessories to the sixth annual Style 2010: Wearable Art Show on Saturday, April 24, at the Palo Alto Art Center.

Making his first appearance at this year’s show is designer Gabriel Russo. A pattern maker by trade, Richmond resident Russo stitches together men’s wear using the inner lining of vintage jackets and well-preserved Japanese textiles. Russo admits that what influences him most is hanger appeal. His vision as a designer is easily translated to the seamless patchwork of his vests, stylized to look like “a modern-day kimono,” he says.
The Eastern motifs of his designs include button-ups with ragged-edged breast pockets. He makes these by salvaging the linings of beautiful old coats to form the pockets themselves, which he then laces with intricately stitched threading. Russo says that his collection, titled Boro Vests and the Shape of a Pocket, is an expression of his own deep, personal interest in Zen Buddhism.

Presenting for the second time at the wearable arts show is jewelry artist emiko oye of San Francisco. She takes the concept of “thinking outside the box” quite literally, removing LEGOs straight from their packaging to craft wistful wearable jewelry.

Since 2004, when Oye began her “reware” LEGO collection, the designer has been inspired by 20th-century jewelry turned into contemporary fashion. Her collection is highly distinctive, with elaborate bracelets that span a large swathe of the wrist. She also sells earrings made from toy truck wheels and necklaces with interchangeable pieces. She seeks out reusable materials—such as LEGOs, recycled circuit boards and plastic—to show people that fashion isn’t simply about following trends and putting together outfits modeled off department store mannequins. She says her creations are all about expression and identity—and to remind her customers just how fun plastic building blocks can be.

Anyone who has worked with bamboo can attest to its durability, and Palo Alto designer Edith Schneider can definitely add her name to this list. What’s unique about the pieces she will be presenting at next week’s show is their unabashed celebration of fabrics, one of which happens to be bamboo. As a textile, the largest member of the grass family is incredibly dense. She says that, when worn, it will be cool in the summer by absorbing moisture, and warm in the winter by preventing cold air from seeping between seams. It’s transitional, which she says has come to be her signature as a designer. Much of what Schneider is focused on is clothing that carries depth, such as a tunic that can be worn as a blouse layered atop leggings, or as a simple summer dress paired with sandals.

Schneider will also be showing her most recent collection at the show, a series of silk and linen tops, tunics and dresses accentuated by vivid prints of butterflies, polka dots, roses and stripes. She says she made a point of not using buttons and zippers, which can sometimes add an element of clutter that washes out her overall vision for a design.

Style 2010 aims to be a breeding ground for new fashion and fresh ideas, and it’s about time the mundane world of fashion gets turned on its head. Can anyone say fashion revolution?


Style 2010: Annual Wearable Art Show
April 24, 10am–5pm
Palo Alto Art Center
$10



by Staff on Apr 23, 2010
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