Orthopedic Couture - Leather Culture and High Fashion

Okay, Mondays usually are devoted to the review of the latest episode of HBO's True Blood, yet I have not got the chance to see the episode, whereas I have to postpone the review till tomorrow. (Sadly). Yet I can give you an adequate topic of interest.

Picture form the labels website. Accessed 20.07.14.

As I have not reported on the latest trends in fashion etc. for a while its remed quite appropriate to give you all my thoughts on the designs of Marina Hoermanseder that were presented at this years Mercedes Benz fashion Week in Berlin. The label of Ms. Hoermanseder might not be a big name, however her designs shoe true talent incorporating absurdism and a certain historicism without loosing their wearability and futuristic appeal. A rare combination in the fashion industry and hard to keep up, as the juxtaposition between style extremes never was and never will be easy. 

The collection clearly has found its influences in the idea of restraint and support of the body as well as the ideas of wearability versus artistic influences in fashion. Especially the detail of such a soft and intricate use of a material such a hard material as leather stuns the spectator while the grant for wearability is (nearly) always given. Yet the choice of color could have been different, yet the overall use of pastel tones and skin related colors gives credit to the connection between organic seeming shapes and restraining corsets. The whole connection was a huge reminder of orthopedic medicine as much as it was couture. The intricate split between cold medic, frightening alien, flawlessly beautiful and delicately feminine has been perfectly managed. 

I as drawn into a fantasy land by the collection as the clothes reminded one of leather culture and SM culture, as well as the symbolic eating behind the material used. Leather, a durable and rough material, is of preconceived notion rather male. However the working of the material and its use in the collection connects ideas of masculinity and femininity in fashion and deconstructs these notions.

Below the video of the collection. Visit the labels homepage at www.marina-hoermanseder.com.