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Imagination knows no bounds.
Take your mind and vision on a tour of an unexpected dreamland at the intersection of fashion and art.
World of WearableArt 2023
Sol Invictus
Presented in the 2023 World of WearableArt stage production in Wellington, New Zealand.
As the world’s leading wearable art competition, WOW selected the most extravagant stage costumes from designers across the globe.
Sol Invictus was presented in the “Gold” section.
Emanating from the dawn of time, the Sun beams faithfully with life-giving gold, announcing the rebirth and coming of life every morning with its blinding gaze.
Sol Invictus honours the seemingly divine powers of the Sun and its namesake deity of Ancient Rome.
Encased in over 1,300 feet of gold filaments, fiery locks and steadfast eyebrows frame a gilded, graceful face with gold-coiled, all-seeing eyes. Piercing rays, dusted with golden beads, radiate warmth to the world below. Winged, it sails across the highest points of heaven, presiding over all of existence – rich, resolute, invincible.
Cashmere 2021
Le Paradisier
Handcrafted entirely out of Cashmere bathroom tissue (yes, as in paper), I had the opportunity to partake in the 2021 Cashmere Collection national campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer.
With the “New Belle Époque” as theme, this creation draws on seemingly dichotimous elements to bring together an outfit that reflects both our fears and exuberance.
The national feature premiered Friday, October 8th, 2021. Stream from Crave TV.
La Belle Époque – a time of optimism and unprecedented individual expression, a time whose art told fantastic tales of nature, exoticism, and the seductive femme fatale. Its struggle for more humanity against the façade of a rigid society brought together dichotomous elements in a seemingly impossible melange; man merged with nature, aristocrats with bohemians, politics with art, and society with individual.
The GRANDI design for Cashmere Collection 2021 is born out of this amorphous melange of opposites, drawing on turn-of-the-century fashion silhouettes, re-invented for 2021.
Underpinning the garment is a ladies’ high-neck blouse worn inside an exposed corsetry, part day suit, part Moulin Rouge. Over top, the infamous Edwardian “S” silhouette mixes with the equally Edwardian avian obsession to form a flaring half skirt, hand-crafted out of voluminous bathroom tissue peacock feathers.
Completing the garment is a mash-up of the broad-shoulder mutton sleeve with a man’s dinner jacket, flanked by shawl lapels carpeted with a glorious sheet of bathroom tissue feathers. Throughout, visual textures anchor the garment, interlacing neat, vertical folds with luscious feathers.
The overall cyberpunk vibe speaks to the “exoticism” of our age, in our fascination with the possibilities along the technological frontier.
Lunar Fest 2019
Cockscomb Fairy
In collaborate with the National Palace Museum of Taiwan and LunarFest 2019, this Lunar New Year fashion exhibit seeks to bridge the cultures of east and west, the past and the present.
Drawing from the fusion-style paintings of Italian missionary and 18th-century Chinese court painter Giuseppe Castiglioni, we created a couture garment
inspired by the artist’s cockscomb still life painting.
The exhibit ran from February – March 2019, at Oakridge Center in Vancouver.
Named for its resemblance to the peculiar crown that adorn the heads of roosters, the cockscomb flower is significant in Chinese culture as it is considered an auspicious symbol of good fortunes and achievements.
As in the approach taken by Castiglioni in painting the plant in the realism style of Western art, this dress design holds the classic silhouette of a Western, feminine gown. The texture and embellishments mirror the unique features found on the cockscomb flower, with its soft, spiked body, and fur-like blossoms. The further pairing of an inner shirt with a gem-studded mandarin collar evokes traditional Chinese dress elements, while its green tones call to the lush, tubular stems of the
plant.
Castiglioni’s painting is used in it entirety as the background of the showcase display, where the fashion and visual art elements support each other.
The unusual juxtaposition of the two wardrobe pieces presents the audience with an ensemble that is classic yet modern, Western yet Oriental. Its predominantly red finishing further signify well-wishes of good fortune for the coming year.
