AGNESE POTTINO
ALKEMURI 2013 MENSWEAR / WOMANSWEAR In this hybrid menswear/womanswear collection, clothes are created as isolated pieces which can be combined and customized. Garments construction is subverted, volumes and shapes are exaggerated and careless of tidiness. The disordered glitch garment is the deconstruction and reconstruction of clothes and represents the alteration of classical and sportive cuts and textures. Military gear and equipment patterns are the inspirations for stretch high-tech sport performative fabrics, which are blended with wool and cotton surfaces. Each piece is a sign of an escape citizen, rushing through a chaotic world of conflicts, imbalances, asymmetries, suggesting a protection isolation gear. Unisex contamination creates hybrids, where dynamism and flexibility are priorities for a performative garment. The dusty environment is the post-atomic scenario for urban soldiers, where each garment is isolated and rigorously catalogued as a war’s relic conserved in a case.
THEODORE HALL 2012 MAN OUTFIT Research on prison jail mugshot and portraits to study criminal clothing and uniforms. What does a criminal should wear? Taking suggestions from the criminologist and psychologist Cesare Lombroso in “L’uomo Delinquente” text , I created the perfect outfit for the ideal contemporary criminal. The criminal uniform is wore by Theodore Hall, a famous spy criminal, arrested and processed to death. Covering and discovering secrets, murders and lies through the visionary criminal uniform. A padded structured and tailored jacket completely zipped on reverses made in accurate poplin cotton fabric where contrasting textures play from outside to lining. An organza drape is tied on waist and attached with golden metallic dungarees to cover a clean and simple satin silk trouser.
CALUMNIA 2012 WOMANSWEAR Ornamental classical decorations are the suggestion for the research on soft and cold material. Delicate and classical white and pearl grey poplin fabric used in shirting is studied and re-elaborated to create clean and accurate shapes. Men’s shirts pattern are distorted and altered into woman’s dresses. The softness of chiffon silk is balanced with the severe rough of cotton, creating a double assimilated body, where is internally soft but covered with padded bombers and jackets. Different weaving cotton patterns play with tone-on-tone twill stripes, fishbones, jacquard decorations. A dynamic woman, who is able to wear sportive and oversize unisex bombers and pants reveals her seduction on smooth and delicate care for quality and elegant fabrics. Organic lines and pure shapes create a religious break from coarse and roughness of life.
Top and shorts: double layers of polyester and stretch synthetic tulle panels.
Long shirt, center back buttoned opening, shoulders and double hem tears with handstitched finished, wing tip collar, 100% jacquard poplin white cotton.
Double-face layered bomber jacket, hand-stitched soft over-all padding; shell: jacquard poplin cotton lining: fishbone twill cotton, reversible
Exhibition “Refuso Tessile”, in collaboration with the wool factory “Lanificio Paoletti”, Follina (TV), edited by IUAV, University of Venice, Italy, (2013).
CLINISTE 2011 ACCESSORIES A clinical trip through the dirty. The research of clearness of designs is transmitted into polished and varnished tones, into cold an aseptic leather. Volumes and shapes transform bags and into organs ready to be butchered. Kitchen is transformed in a operating surgery room, where leather is manipulated and stretched to create a fleshy human skin texture. Metallic buckles and accessories are burned and subjected to oxidation processes to create a corrosive, consumed and inedible object.
Graduated in Fashion Design course at IUAV, University of Venice, Agnese explores the world of garment forms and construction. Her works reflect on organic shapes and extreme volumes, treating fabric as a sculptural surface that covers a dynamic human body to create structural garments. She plays with the equilibrium of proportions and complex balances. Her attitude persuades and disturbs with a cold and latent violence, where emerges a disconcerting and unrevealed beauty. Agnese Pottino currently lives and works in London.