SHORTLISTED DESIGNERS 2012

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Daniel Hurlin France, Men collection, “Perfect Blue Tamara” horaires

Daniel Hurlin is in the process of completing his studies at the Institut Français de la Mode, in Paris, but that which truly defines him is his diversity: one moment assisting Raf Simons with his menswear collections and the next designing clothes for the supermarket Tesco, or even taking a trip to work on eco-farms in Japan, just to recharge his batteries. His collection combines two major sources of inspiration, seemingly far removed one from the other: on the one side, the painter Tamara de Lempicka, with her elegant portraits and their metallic texture, and on the other, the schizophrenic world of Satoshi Kon’s animation Perfect Blue. Daniel Hurlin unites them both in his highly charged prints where delicate lilies conceal panicked expressions. Acting as a common thread, this iconography is embodied within the architecture of his clothes. They are fragments of screens upon which poisonous images jostle, the lithe bodies of naked or blood spattered women. Daniel Hurlin sees even more bonds between these two artists: a question of materials, light, transparency, an atmosphere that is at once both erotic and glacial. He deconstructs the patterns of classic menswear, manipulates cuts, compartmentalises bodies, isolating certain parts, or suddenly revealing others: a mosaic of faded colours which sometimes makes one think of Kazimir Malevich. Employing violent contrasts, Daniel Hurlin creates an attractive fiction where elegance conceals a trap which is as delicate as it is deadly.

Collection produced with support from: Première Vision, Olmetex, Lyria Spa, Limonta, Furpile Maglia, Puntoseta.

www.danielhurlin.com