Two Designers, Two Styles, One Outlook
Designer Antonio Ortega SS 2017 Collection was inspired by the notions of beauty and martyrdom. The visual esthetic was a paradoxical blend of crucified Christ and the elegance of the 1930's.
Image Credit: antoniooretgacouture.com
The scene opens on a clerical circus where pain and suffering hide behind the luminosity of beauty and creation. The normality of revealing pain through a collection both created and distorted by the striking blows of a hand was quite tantalizing.
Image Credit: antoniooretgacouture.com
Yet, through the morbidity and horror of a bloody, bruised body, the viewer glimpses a dynamic dance emerge from colorful and textured patterns. A dance where silk crepe, cotton, chiffon, silk and taffeta are highlighted by the embroidery defining Ortega's trademark.
The collection exposes two worlds seemingly in contrast, through cuts, flowing lines, and stained glass beadwork. Lashes of a whip, either planned and carefully premeditated, or completely spontaneous and unexpected, exposing traces of the designer's creations, whims, and patterns.
Image Credit: antoniooretgacouture.com
With his passion for couture, craftsmanship, and creation, Antonio Ortega's style embodies diversity and elegance, enabling a woman to look and feel her best.
The martyr of beauty - or beauty of the martyr?
Butterfly of Paradise
At the Westin Hotel in Paris France, designer Ziad Nakad presents his inventiveness of a universal paradise where butterflies and flowers are the pivotal emblems of inspiration.
Image Credit: Mywonderfulworldket.blogspot.com
Each silhouette gives the appearance of a radiant bouquet of summer flowers. The poignancy and delicacy of butterfly structures are depicted in three dimensional shapes and sophisticated insertions of embroidery. With a predominant color range of salmon pink, soft blue, dazzling gray, and calm amber.
Cuts wide and narrow, short and long, or even asymmetrical give a touch of audacity.
The show culminates with an ethereal bride in the magnificent paradise appearing in an astonishing gown embroidered with butterflies.
Ziad Nakad's creative mix of materials and colors reflect timeless femininity and the beauty of a woman's personality.