The Indie / Emerging Designers mega thread

[SomethingElse]

^ I couldn't get the video clip links to work but I adore the simplicity and grace of the clothes on asluxe.com.

 

[farren fashion]

i'm kind of sad the pics and videos i posted didn't work. if you have itunes you should subscribe to the fashion scoop podcast. it's amazing.

 

[SomethingElse]

ONG by Leong Ong

Leong Ong is a former head designer for Ralph Lauren, now designing under his patronym ONG. His S/S 2007 and last year's F/W 2006 can be seen at http://www.ilong4ong.com/ong.html.



ilong4ong.com

 

[farren fashion]

^^ the cardigan is cute. <3

 

[Lineg]

^yes, its very cute

 

[vogueness]

I agree

 

[farren fashion]

Levi's Story

A Hasid Grows in Brooklyn

...Some people called it the Tree of Heaven...It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenement districts... Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Hardly the venue for a budding Fashion Designer, the Hasidic neighborhood of Crown Heights, NY was the setting for the future. A stroll down Eastern Parkway gives one a glimpse of bodegas, liquor stores and small yiddish-signed shops selling religious articles.

The aspiring youth sneaking away from yeshiva, to his aunts modest dress shop. Watching needle, thimble and thread create landscapes and valleys, giving meaning and importance to the Brooklyn Hausfrau, and his impossible fantasy.

Levi Okunov; apprenticed, studied, and watched. Captivated by the concept, he yearned to create from mere scraps of fabric transcendant beauty. His setting allowed him to roam freely in the epicenter of fashion and style, mingle, meet and collaborate with other young talents and industry stars.

At the age of nineteen he presented his first collection and the vibrant contradiction of phantasmagorical colors and fifth-dimensional cuts amazed critics. Featured in the New York Times and Women's Wear daily, the addictive passionate LEVI OKUNOV has arrived.

source: http://www.leviokunov.com/

^^ there's his spring/summer 2007 video on there also.

^^ fall 2006

source: modafoto.com

i don't know if he's been posted about on here before. i think he's very interesting. his background and his story and what not.

 

[SomethingElse]

^ He designed Sally Kirkland's dress for the Academy Awards this year! I found a site in Poland that has quite a bit more of his work: http://www.eastnews.com.pl/news/temat.php?temat=00084593&strona=1&kiedy=przedwczoraj



followthecrowd.net

 

[farren fashion]

^^^ thnx for the link!

 

[Deleted member 1957]

http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f60/indie-designers-mega-thread-4380-17.html#pos

Hey people, I finally have a new website pse check it out and giv me ur feedback in the guest book and also here.
Follow any of these links

http://www.eguanakla.com


http://www.eguana.co.nr

Merci

 

[SomethingElse]

Jacqui Alexander

Here is the link to her website. http://www.jacquialexander.com.au

Finding her range

18-year-old Jacqui Alexander is the youngest designer to be picked up by prestigious British department store, Harvey Nichols.

At 18, Jacqui Alexander is one of Australia's youngest fashion designers. As Rachel Wells discovers, she's also one of the most ambitious.

Jacqui Alexander is a hit with her friends. Not just because she is "always up for a laugh", but because she has a wardrobe to die for - in fact she has a fashion label to die for.

"They love it. Whenever we're going out, they all come over and I lay all the clothes on the bed and say, 'Take your pick'," says the Melburnian, who designed her first two collections while completing year 12 studies at Bialik College in East Hawthorn last year.

Next month, she will become the youngest designer ever to be stocked by Harvey Nichols when her garments are racked in the retailer's Dubai store. And it won't be long before they hit London.

While her friends are throwing their Birkenstocks into their backpacks for a 12-month sojourn in Europe, Alexander is bound for Britain, where she will meet reps from Harvey Nichols and other retailers vying to sign up the exciting young designer.

"I'll be going over and meeting with a few different people and doing a bit more research to figure out which retailer is the right fit for me in that market, because I don't want to get locked in somewhere that is not going to be the best for the brand in the long term," Alexander says, modestly pulling her cream muslin shift over her tanned and teenage-toned legs.

To her friends and family, she's Jacqui Krivitsky, but she's already decided that, for business purposes, she wants to be known by her label name. She might have the body of an 18-year-old, but she has a much older and wiser head on her shoulders.

"When I'm in business meetings and things, I usually wait till halfway through the conversation and then I'll say, 'By the way, I'm 18'. No one ever thinks I'm that young because I know what I'm talking about. I've grown up with fabrics and fashion and it's not like I have to bluff my way through, because I know it."

Alexander's father Sasha Krivitsky worked as a costume designer for the Russian Ballet for 10 years before migrating to Melbourne in the late 1980s. He ran a successful factory in Prahran - manufacturing for Saba and Scanlan & Theodore - before launching his own fashion label with his wife, artist Margarita Krivitsky, six years ago.

Alexander, who runs her label from her parents' Prahran-based workroom, where they produce their women's wear label Master & Margarita - for more "mature" women - says her father taught her everything she knows.

"Ever since I was a baby, he has made me the most beautiful dresses. I don't think I wore a pair of trousers until I was about 12,"she laughs. "I just grew up playing with fabrics and making clothes and, even when I was as young as seven, my friends would come over and I would make clothes and we'd put on a fashion parade."

Later, when Alexander took up ballroom dancing, she and her father would work on her costumes.

"We'd be up until midnight the night before an event, finishing the costumes and sticking on sequins."

When she takes me through her spring/summer collection, her intimate knowledge of fabric and construction becomes apparent. She talks about fashion in the way most teens might talk about music or their favourite Hollywood celebrities.

She pulls a printed silk gown from the rack. "This dress takes five kilos off a woman. Seriously, it just hangs off the body so gracefully. I like to use heavier fabrics because I know the effect it has," she continues. "You automatically stand up taller, and you feel lighter."

Alexander's big break came when she showed her range at a fashion event organised by Austrade in Dubai in November last year - just weeks after completing her VCE exams.

"I was working on my collection and studying for my exams at the same time. My friends thought I was mad," she laughs.

But there was method to her madness. As a result of her Dubai show, Alexander sold almost $500,000 worth of orders to retailers throughout the Middle East and caught the eye of Harvey Nichols.

Now she has stockists in Britain, Russia and Canada. Back home, her label can be found in several stores, including the Cactus Jam boutiques. She is also in talks with Myer and David Jones.

"I never expected it to happen so fast. Now I'm kind of like, 'Well, what's next?' - because the goals I set for five years happened in the first 12 months."

However, Alexander insists her success hasn't happened overnight.

"When people say to me, 'How did it all come about so quickly?', I'm like, well, it hasn't. I've been preparing for this for years and just waiting in the wings."

It was during the summer holidays before starting year 12 that her father gave her the green light for her label.

"One day I was in my room sketching and Dad came in and said, 'OK, it's time. You're ready'. It was such a leap of faith. Dad just said, 'Let's do it. Let's get a little collection together and we can tag it on to the end of ours'. And then a little collection turned into a big collection with a name of it's very own. And I picked up a few stockists in Europe and the UK and that's how it all started really."

Alexander's newest collection mixes easy-to-wear jersey tanks and dresses with cleverly constructed gowns - all structured bodices and soft silhouettes that accentuate hips and waists, some with a Kit Willow Podgornik sensibility about them. She says her sense of construction is something she learned from her father.

"He went to a Russian design school where it was all about structure and quality and attention to detail," she says.

Alexander says she never considered studying fashion formally.

"I knew I never wanted to study it because I didn't need to. I got all the insight I needed from my father."

Instead, she has enrolled in a creative advertising course at RMIT, which she says will help her with the marketing and branding of her business.

"Dad and I share a studio, which is great. We are always bouncing ideas off each other."

She says there are many others willing to proffer advice.

"It's great, because I'm like the baby in the industry. Other designers are always coming up to me and giving me advice."

Although she's been working frantically since she finished high school, Alexander wouldn't swap it for anything - not even backpacking through Europe for a year.

"I wouldn't have it any other way. There's plenty of time to go off travelling and do all that stuff. Anyway, I can't sit still for that long."

YOUNG FASHION PRODIGIES

Yves Saint Laurent was 17 when he went to work for French designer Christian Dior. Following Dior's death in 1957, he was named his successor - becoming the youngest ever couturier at age 21.

Australian designer Prue Acton was 19 when she launched her label. By 21, she had stockists throughout Australia, New Zealand and the US.

Marc Jacobs was 21 and still a student when he sold his first line of hand-knitted sweaters. He was 23 when he designed his first collection under the Marc Jacobs brand.

Melbourne designer Toni Maticevski had been sketching designs since he was four years old and was just 20 when, having graduated from RMIT fashion design with honours, he headed to New York where he did a brief stint with Donna Karan before shifting to Paris to work with fashion house Cerutti. He returned to Melbourne in 1999 and, at 22, launched the Toni Maticevski label.

theage.com.au

 

[clay]

source: http://www.leviokunov.com/

*please do not quote pictures*
^^ there's his spring/summer 2007 video on there also.
^^ fall 2006

source: modafoto.com

i don't know if he's been posted about on here before. i think he's very interesting. his background and his story and what not.

Great guy! I saw him recently and we had not seen each other for two years I think and he was just as cool as when I first met him. He is going places.

 

[SomethingElse]

ELM - from Iceland

http://www.elm.is I really like all the work they have posted on their site! The images are huge so just use the link and see the work in situ.

Elm Design is a six year old company out of Iceland. The design team behind Elm consists of three Icelandic women; an artist, a textile designer and a drama therapist. The Elm world is in black and white, with a few unique bright notes breaking up the duotone landscape. The line is for women who demand comfort, quality and sophistication. Elm sells its high fashion designs to the USA, France and Italy.

. kismetspace.com

 

[SomethingElse]

Catherine Bacon

http://www.catherinebacon.com Wo. Very pretty work. Current and past collections can be seen on her site.

Clothing designer Catherine Bacon ‘s themes reflect issues of transformation, pilgrimage, spiritual growth and yearning. Her design, colors and pattern, as they gracefully drape the body, welcome the movement that is essential for the evolution of our own unique bodies. The collections represent the evolving collaborative efforts of many talented artists. Textile designers, painters, printers, dyers, cutters, seamstresses and knitters make up the creative collective that helps produce the work.

. kismetspace.com

 

[SomethingElse]

Zuzka

http://www.zuzka.com/enter.html. A fabric designer (mostly silk and velvet ), who also designs coats - click the "Cutting Edge" icon (second from the right) on her site to see the finished works.

Zuzka is the one name Prague-designer from the third generation of a design family. Following an art education in Tel Aviv and Rome, she established Fabricology in New York City. The Zuzka fashion line includes magnificent separates available in hand dyed velvets, lustrous, hand woven silks, rich brocades, hand-embroidered wools and antique weaves of the highest quality. Her jackets, coats, blouses and vests offer her customers unique, elegant apparel for evening, black tie events and daytime affairs. Her clothing is sold in exclusive boutiques and specialty stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Wilkes Bashford, and Banner Milan.

. kismetspace.com

 

[Oak Jeans]

Oak Jeans

Hello everyone

Heres some skinny jeans i created! Im getting some good feedback from lots of places but thought id share them with you lot to see what you all think?

image credit: fairlight studios London​

Its really important to me to hear what everyone thinks so please let me know!​

 

[farren fashion]

^^ you should post a largelr pic so we could see them better! =]

 

[SomethingElse]

Commuun

http://www.commuun.com

Eschewing chemical-based fabrics for Japanese organic cotton and Italian linen, Paris-based designers Kaito Hori and Iku Furudate of Commuun believe that "environmental issues can not be ignored when considering the future of fashion and society as a whole." Each collection is inspired by natural landscape and "the balance and tension in nature." While the pieces are fastidiously crafted and ecologically sound, they also breathe a rebellious and bold spirit through color and cut. The fall 2007 collection was inspired by photographs of the sea, importing colors from the ocean-like stark blues and haunting blacks, which are grounded by uncluttered silhouettes. There are ethereal tops floating above skin-tight miniskirts, dresses with undulating layers, and graphic blouses anchored by slim pants. The collection is intended for a woman who is "strong and still pure in ways," says Furudate. Do not expect the earth mother archetype. With the pair's understated confidence, Commuun can easily spearhead the movement for sustainable clothing that's still enduringly chic.

coolhunting.com

 

[Oak Jeans]

Hey,

ok here is a bigger pic of that design its my favourite one and is the one getting the attention right now.

http://images7.************/images/f9/f6b120bfff04d1d75435fec4536d57f9.jpg

 

[libby_bee]

I like them! is that an oak tree on the pocket? I hope so - that would be cute!