Archaea
ROCK SHOW
We have featured label DZHUS many many times on this blog. Designer Irina Dzhus manages to fascinate us both with every collection. She never deviates from her aesthetic which is really very brave when it's an aesthetic that's so unique. The word 'monastic' always springs to mind when I see her work. For her Spring/Summer 18 collection she unveils her secret passion: palaeontology.
“Having explored the phenomenon of generation and development of life on Earth for years, simultaneously with my pattern-making experiments, I have explored zoomorphic silhouettes and geologic textures with the “Archaea” collection.”
Her multifunctional "transformer garments" are inspired by the intricate shapes of Ammonite and Trilobite fossils and the "evolution of charnia and arthropleura, long-gone Carbon and Ordovician".
Besides the fossil references, which can be seen so clearly in hoods and high necklines, she also cites "the scientific avant-garde of late 19th – early 20th centuries, appealing to the Victorian aesthetics as well as laboratory uniforms" as her secondary inspiration. Her very strict, lean silhouettes, prevalent in each of her collections, does conjure the image of uniforms of days gone by. Of course, there is no starchy fabrics here. Irina uses an exquisite mix of crushed silk, mélange linen, sheer crepe, finest woollen gauze, cotton with a distressed effect.
The first top has my name all over it!
