(photo: Hill&Aubrey)
For Autumn/Winter 2012
The small men’s collection for A/W 12 by Si Chan, is full of pieces that are as interesting as they are fun, complete with interesting colorways, shapes and playful proportions. Yet, the consistent detail throughout the collection is the presence of a series of hand movements specifically that of a hug. Of the hug, Si Chan says (as shown above), is to ’express how the (dis) connection between people to people and the loneliness by my experience.’
(photo: Hill&Aubrey)
The more I looked at the collection, the happier it made me feel with all of it’s little nuances. For instance, above you see the the shoes with hands on top of them and the blue gloves are worthy of any Maurice Sendak monster in ‘Where The Wild Things Are’.
(photos: Hill&Aubrey)
With this jacket below, who needs anybody with so many embraces at once?
(photos: Hill&Aubrey)
One has to admit, the bulbous nature of the hands on some of these pieces, such as those above, share a slight resemblance to that of the phalluses used by Yayoi Kusama in some of her work, like her ‘Blue Coat, 1965’ below. (Check out her retrospective now showing at the Whitney Museum.)
(photo: Yayoi Kusama)
Or the puffy asymmetry beautifully engineered by COMME des GARÇONS including this piece from its Fall 2010 RTW collection below.
(photo: STYLE.COM)
According to Si Chan, “Hugs”, “Communication”, “Interesting”, “Fun”, “flourishing”, “a bit implication of sex”, “comfort”, “to be protected”, “to be surrounded”, ‘to cherish” “warmth”, “memory”, “happiness”, “childhood”, “lifetime”, ”Let go”, etc’, are some of the keywords which capture the main points of his collection. Repetition is also a common theme throughout such as sleeves, providing the wearer with more comfort of ‘feeling full and not alone’, says Chan.
One can’t help but feel loved in these pieces, which, by all accounts, sparks memory of a child’s toy with the plush soft hands, like the coat below
(photo: Hill&Aubrey)
which loosely reminded me of the Campana Brothers‘ Teddy Bear Chair below
(photo: NYT)
or one of Nick Cave‘s ‘Soundsuits’ as seen here.
(photo: BULLETT)
Overall, Chan asks, ‘Everybody needs love, Don’t you?’, and nothing expresses this best as the suit below, covering all bases, wink, wink.
(photo: Hill&Aubrey)
(via this is paper)