SHORTLISTED DESIGNERS 2012

hyères 27

Kim Choong-Wilkins United Kingdom, Men collection, horaires

A graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, Kim Choong-Wilkins lives and works in the capital of the United Kingdom. Dystopia is defined as the opposite to Utopia, a concept used to qualify the worlds described in the novels Brave New World and 1984 by Aldous Huxley and Georges Orwell respectively. One may also find references within various science fiction films, such as Blade Runner, THX 11388 and 2001, A Space Odyssey. Upon this background, the worlds of space conquest, golf, and competitive sports clash and blend. Kim Choong-Wilkins applies the principle of an association of ideas, which allows for the transposition of a particular detail within an unexpected material, or to radically switch from one context to another. For example, the well known diamond “Argyle” pattern employed in golf pullovers, is reinterpreted using metal rivets. Fascinated by old space suits, this designer has created clothes whose proportions and impressive designs combine wool with plastic materials, or metal threads. These strange futuristic chainmail suits imperceptibly lead one to think of Elizabethan breastplates. However, one is transported from 16th Century pages and their micro-ventilated fabric tights, once more, to the figure of a jogger in a skin tight outfit. A pair or two of golfing trousers, cut for a lunar walk with Alan Shepard, take us swiftly back to our point of origin: Kim Choong-Wilkins has launched his fashion into orbit, that is to say, a rapid trajectory, that is equidistant from both earth and sky.

Collection produced with support from: Première Vision, Schoeller, The British Millerain Company Ltd., Kuroki Fabrics, Tessuti Frizza, Puntoseta. Cristals offered from: SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS.