The Spice Girls reference in the title of Kym Ellery’s new collection—“When Two Become One”—slightly distracted from the excellence of the concept. In a nutshell, the Australian designer decided to hand over 150 of her existing leftover pieces from past collections to the Dutch designer Duran Lantink. He is a creative salvager, a designer of “new” garments whose whole is the sum of the parts of “old” garments that he scavenges, takes apart, and reengineers. Commended in last year’s International Fashion Showcase (he was pipped to the post by Thebe Magugu), Lantink showed an installation there showcasing clothes that grafted Celine with fast fashion. In this collaborative capsule everything was Ellery.
Of the process she said, “It was so interesting to take something, like, not quite deadstock, but something that as a garment has an almost negative energy to it, and rework it to lend it a new freshness and identity, a second life.”
It seems rather brave for a designer to hand over her work to be melted down and resculpted, but Ellery added: “I really wanted to give him space to have time with the garments and to do whatever he wanted. To be honest, I found the whole thing really refreshing.” Lantink’s vivid chop shop process created “new” garments that were fashioned from up to four “old,” she added.
At that point our WhatsApp went three-way as Lantink himself dropped into the call. He said: “This is the first time I’ve ever worked with material from a single brand. It was interesting because when I work with material from different brands you don’t really have to think about them, you can really express your own identity. But working with Ellery, I had to figure out how you don’t lose that brand’s identity while also staying true to myself. I had all those archive pieces and I took them out and then set myself the puzzle of putting them back together in a new way.” The DIYness of Lantink’s process spiced his raw Ellery ingredients with a tougher, almost punkish, edge hitherto unseen, while the story of the process of these garments renders them feel-good purchases to relish wearing daringly. Win-win.
