Pavel Ivančic: The Twins in Us

(jana zielinski) The winner of the Fashion Designer of the Year 2006 Award, Pavel Ivančic, won another award at Designblok – The Editors-in-Chief Award for the Best Fashion Collection. The Unrelated Twin collection is extraordinary and manifestable – it manifests Ivančic’s opinions of various topics, such as femininity, identity, and body. Plus, it ventures beyond the borderline of female fashion, yet at the same time goes back to its essence. We asked Pavel Ivančic what led him to explore gender politics in such detail.

What is the idea behind your collection?
“The collection is a visual manifesto of how I perceive the concept of femininity/identity, it tries to push through my definition of fashion as ‘conceptual couture’. Inspired by the contrast of masculinity and femininity, it reflects gender issues and the phenomenon of identity, the relationship between a body and space. The fundamental idea of duality is put well in its title – THE UNRELATED TWIN. The collection consists of couples - each couple is identical, yet different. The couples complement one another in a certain way.”

How important was it for you to design visual art creations without an end customer? Will you transfer anything from the inspiring collection into a standard collection for normal wearing?
“Visual art creation, i.e. the development, is absolutely essential for me. Only thus I am able to express and develop the core – visual art principles, embossed expression, etc. – which I can later translate into a pragmatic version (i.e. a wearable one) without having to make compromises. Of course, I will derive something from THE UNRELATED TWIN project in my future ready-to-wear collection. It can hardly work the opposite way.

Moreover, the collection is made from exceptional materials.
“The materials were treated by an innovative technology of pasting and layering, which was developed as part of this creative project, to achieve the desired embossed effect. The colors (neutral black and white, a sensual body-powder color, and red + utilitarian dark blue), selected materials, and their combinations are based on the concept of a search for balance between the feminine and masculine principle, as well as on the reflection of the social and cultural background from which I come from (e.g. the concept of a work uniform promoted to a personal suit on the verge of fetish is shown in the combination of luxury silk with ordinary cheap wool for men’s suits). The project has resulted in a collection of twelve clothing objects.”

Personally, I liked the golden twin the most. There is another one with an ‘I’ sown onto a perfectly cut dress. They can whisper or argue about who will walk first or simply enjoy the fact that they are together even though they are not related. They can be seen from October 27 on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the studio of Liběna Rochová. There is no admission tax to Studio LR (Malostranské nábřeží 1, 1st floor, Prague 1). For more information, see www.studio-lr.com.

< back