Exhibition "Marine. Sea in the fashion of the XX-XXI centuries"

An interdisciplinary fashion exhibition has opened at the ZARYA Center for Contemporary Art (Vladivostok), combining photography, video art, archival vintage and contemporary design collections. Exposition “Marine. The sea in the fashion of the XX-XXI centuries ”will last until May 8. Free admission.

The exhibition is dedicated to marine inspiration in the collections of fashion designers of the XX-XXI centuries: from the classic vest Coco Chanel and other borrowings from the wardrobe of sailors to the fabulous underwater fantasies of Jean-Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld and Alexander McQueen. Marine collections of modern designers are distinguished by clean lines and colors. Miuccia Prada, Alyona Akhmadullina, Alexander Terekhov, Swarovski - these and other designers were inspired by the theme of the sea when creating collections for the spring-summer 2016 season.

The theme of the exhibition is revealed in the format of a multisciplinary exhibition using items of clothing, accessories, photographs, lookbooks, video installations and archived photo and video materials, some of which will be exhibited for the first time. An educational program is held as part of the exposition, including lectures, guided tours and film screenings of fashion films.

“The exhibition is truly international, we presented the works of famous fashion houses from around the world: Chloe, Hermès, Prada, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Norma Kamalli, Manish Arora, John Rocha, Ashish, as well as vintage items from the archive of the Moscow project by Olga Samodumova PEREMOTKA and mine Own collection of Long Story Vintage, where the ancient thing itself is a 30s blouse made of thin cotton with a sea collar. Russian designers are also represented in all their diversity: from the couture dresses of the Tatyana Parthenon fashion house, completely embroidered by hand, and archival works by Dmitry Loginov brand ARSENICUM to progressive designers from St. Petersburg Homo Consommatus and the duo Sisters with Love - these are sisters who work between Moscow and New York. The exposition also includes the work of Vladivostok designer Svetlana Gruzdova, creator of the Sea brand.

The concept of the exhibition resembles the approach of the art director of fashion photography: things from the collections of different designers and the work of progressive photo and video artists and collages tell one story. There are four in this exhibition: marine classics, modern minimalism, underwater stories about Atlantis and mermaids. For the last two, we built a cave in which amphibian creatures live. I was inspired to create the scenery by the Chanel spring-summer 2012 show, where there was an underwater scene with huge shells, caves, a coral reef - all in white. In our cave there are many scaly textures of colored sequins; the hem of the dresses resembles mermaid tails, and the dress of the British fashion veteran John Rocha looks like a huge jellyfish. An important exhibit is the Manish Arora coat, fantastic in cut and material. This is a pret-a-porter with a couture approach, a hand-made application of velvet on silk: a million silhouettes of bathers form a pattern. The dress from the STORM collection of the Russian Arsenicum brand is entangled in knitted knitting that resembles fishing tackle. The inspiration of this collection is extremely poetic and refers to the energy of the sea element with such symbols as sunken ships, torn fishing nets, sweet singing of sirens, flickering textures, broken masts, skeletons of fish thrown ashore. One dress fits this whole story.

Tatyana Parfyonova specifically for the exhibition presented an installation on the theme of mermaids-brides, where couture items from the archival collections of the fashion house are collected in complex images. As a real artist, Parfyonova does not offer a flat interpretation of the marine theme, because her collections always have an imposition of multiple meanings and images, and therefore, in our exposition, floral motifs coexist with lobsters and fish, ”said curator of the exhibition Julia Gordina.

About the curator

Julia Gordina - fashion journalist, creative consultant and producer, founder of the Wonderfoxy communications bureau, a graduate of the University of Bath business school, at various times wrote fashion, design and culture articles for magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Timeout London, Flux Magazine, Global Blue, Interview Russia, Bully and Vice Style. Her portfolio includes interviews with Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Jones, Christopher Kane, Peter Jensen, Manish Arora, The Prodigy and many others. Among the curator’s recent projects are the premiere of Russian fashion films at London Fashion Week, the Fashion Film Days festival of fashion and video art at the Tsvetnoy department store in Moscow, and a course on creating fashion films at the Moscow Film School and the British Higher School of Design.