(Images and Videos by TAFF and Tatler Magazine)
"Deep Sea Diving" is an award-nominated collection created for Singapore Stories 2021, a designer competition with the theme, "Fashion and Technology: A New Era", held by the Textile and Fashion Federation.
At the maritime trade gallery in the Asian Civilizations Museum, 9th century Tang artifacts had been recovered from a shipwreck. Encrusted with corals, these artifacts expressed new textures that inspired the collection "Deep Sea Diving".
To capture the juxtaposition of live and dead corals, I created two unique textile art prints: the Corals Print and the Fossils Print. While the Corals Print interprets the luminous web-like intricacies of corals, the Fossils Print is inspired by the rock-like skeleton left behind by coral polyps.
Inspired by the streamlined silhouette of a diver's wetsuit, the collection features gently contoured cheongsams and two-piece sets. Soft silk drapes are combined with the tailored lines of cotton twill, silver mesh sleeves with armor-like shoulder panels, capturing the fluidity and structure of motion in water. The color palette trails from black, marine blue, gold-yellow to silver and chalk white.
Utilizing just five fabrics that were incorporated into the various designs - the remnants repurposed into a Patchwork Jacket - this collection was cut for circularity and minimum waste.
The collection was presented as a runway show at the Asian Civilizations Museum and exhibited at Design Orchard Singapore.
