dreaming of the past
From the beginning we knew that if we had to produce garments industrially and use new fabrics for technical reasons, the production itself should be sustainable, fair and transparent.(manufactured in EU, NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS and certified biological cotton)
However, we also strongly believe that ‘sustainability’ is not only reflected in the production, but also in the subsequent handling of a product. If we, as designer, follow seasonal trends’ too closely in our creations, we indirectly impose an expiration date on the product, which has a major impact on the way consumers treat the product. It is therefore this more prudent handling of the garment in the long term that has an influence on the value’ of a product.
The reason for the compression of fashion cycles is due to the concept of „design“ in itself and not only caused by the prevailing system. As a result of our personal interest in art history, we have deliberately chosen motifs that are no less relevant today than they will be in 10 years and beyond. Historical art has enjoyed general popularity since the early Renaissance and there has never been a time when they were not admired, cultivated and researched in museums, since that time. (Origin of museums)
Ever since Cavalli used historical motifs for his textile prints in the 80‘s and 90’s, classical art has prevailed in the fashion world as a motif (see Westwood, JPG, McQueen or Michiyo Inaba).
If we had gone online in – or 10 years ago with exactly these pants, the feedback would probably have been the same however, we also know that our intention and interest in this kind of design is very much a result of the present time. We never had the feeling that we arouse an interest in history of art among our followers on instagram, as there is already an existing one. One shares a longing for the past. So this melancholic nostalgia is not only a reaction to our times and digital modernity, but can perhaps also be seen as a conscious or subconscious resistance to the ephemerality of objects such as consumer goods or ‘trends’.
Living in a world in which products or objects that surround us have no real value any longer and are produced only to be thrown away as quickly as possible, creates this present longing inn people for something more permanent and authentic. This perceptible urge to slow things down and the consequent new interest in history and the past, testify an uneasiness about the present and the future, because ‘nostalgia’ and ‘romanticizing the past’ can also mean ‘escape’, ‘withdrawal’ and ‘refusal’.
In a similar way to seeing materialistic goods, people perceive the flood of ‘images’ on social media, to which we are exposed every day. Through digitalization and the ‘icon turn’, the ‘image’ naturally also takes on a new meaning. Through the Internet, which is becoming more and more visual, we are no longer able to categorically distinguish between quick snapshots taken with a cell phone and a baroque painting from the 18th century. We scroll and scroll and everything we see, we perceive only as ‘images’. This never-ending quantity of images also shifts their quality. Maybe that’s why a baroque painting, which has been hanging in a museum for about 300 years, is once again more important as an information carrier than any picture of yesterday’s lunch that can be seen 24 hours a day in an Instagram story. The Gothic cathedral of Strasbourg, for example, was no less imposing when it was built than it is today. Actually it was the other way round.
We never had the claim to be ‘innovative’, ‘contemporary’ or ‘seasonable’. Simply put, we did not want to do anything ‘new’ in the first place. People who buy pants today should still feel well when wearing them in future. We wanted to rethink the factors ‘time’ and ‘trend’ for us.
Nostalgia as resistance.