My Concept

After researching Balenciaga and his very Spanish influenced designs, I would like to experiment with drapery, silhouette and proportion. I would like to use the Tudor's costume as the starting concept as the drapery and silhouette are very similar to Balenciaga's designs and I would like to carry this essence through to my collection. Paying particular focus to the Tudor's men's wear, my aim is to translate it into a fashionable and desirable collection for the modern woman.

From the images above, it is clear that there is a distinct correlation between Balenciaga's designs, both past and present, and the Tudors' costume in terms of patters, details, fabrics, collars, cuffs, shape, silhouette and drape. Nicolas Ghesquière's Spring 2011 collection echoes punk masculinity and this collection has been described as:

·         Punk, couture

·         Street, Japanese, punk, British (80s riveted by future)

·         Strong masculine, feminine mix.

·         Boyish trousers, lost in big jacket.

·         Complex, layers make it feminine

·         Wear it both feminine but also hard and edgy.

·         Reinvented simple dresses and materials. (little black dress, tweed)

·         Plastic, lace, leather,rubber

·         Play on dinner shirt

·         Instinct of protection with the big coats and emphasised shoulders.

·         Semi- defense mode, less of a victim in woman.

·         Strong girl

I would like to preserve a certain sense of edgy masculinity in my collection through form and structure. 

As both early Balenciaga and Tudors' costume were quite sever in cut, symmetrical in shape, I want to inject some playfulness and unexpectancy into my collection by introducing Cubism into the design concept. With this, I want to experiment with proportion, scale, displacement of garment features, exaggerating certain parts while understating others. Play with layering fabrics and asymmetry to break away from the severity and austerity of Cristobal's precise tailoring yet retaining his essence of design at the same time.