milan fashion week 2015 s/s : stella jean

패션하우스의 수석디자이너가 바뀔 때마다

브랜드의 이미지가 달라지는 건 당연하다

 

 

More than four years after Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, crumbled to the ground in a catastrophic earthquake in 2010, the terrifying images associated with the country remain. And yet, recovery is underway. “Haiti is more than just devastation,” says the Italo-Haitian designer Stella Jean, busying her herself backstage on Wednesday amidst a colorful, uplifting collection that reflects the country’s vibrant arts scene and her Creole heritage. And she’s correct. For a start, bold football shirts embossed with Port-au-Prince reflect Stella’s determined focus to put this tiny Caribbean nation back on the map without a trace of self-pity, smartly paired with the colorful, image-rich works of Haiti’s self-taught artists embellishing the likes of her familiar ladylike dresses, fish-tail skirts, and richly embroidered stiff sixties silk jackets.

Jean’s continuing commitment to ethical fashion has catapulted awareness of the genre to a broader and younger audience (one only has to glance at the crowd outside her show to spot the throes of young girls sporting her grandiose silhouettes to acknowledge the effect), and this season she made an emotional return home to Haiti in June—her mother is Haitian—as part of a continued collaboration with the International Trade Centre (ITC), a United Nations agency. The designer’s “Italian sartorial silhouettes,” as she describes them, her trademark hyperbolized forms—fifties prom dresses, billowing jackets, and voluminous skirts—were this season outfitted with glorious traditional depictions of simple village and market scenes, portraits, tropical fruit, and flowers, rendered in vivid colors and worn with plaid tops and somber pinstriped shirts. The nostalgic subject matter coupled with the evident cultural riches of this island were a potent force. And that is essentially where Stella’s skill lies. Speaking of textiles, she expertly links Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mali, and Italy through her exploration whilst subverting the common opinion of them. Those natty pants and blazers that resemble an English collegiate uniform are in fact produced from textiles hand-woven in Mali, and the striped retro-looking preppy cloth on her covetable doctors bags is from Burkina Faso. An Instagram-friendly finale of colorful beachwear with fantastic prints like bold fish and sunny scenes emphasized the artisan crafts of hand-painted and hand-embroidered fabrics and underlined her smart preservation of one legacy, whilst in the process of creating another.