G OLDFOIL Mizuki Tochigi on how our actions influence others in the fight towards sustainability
Steven Passaro SS21 and the Act of Growth interview
NOVEMBER ISSUE ‘20
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Editorial Steven Passaro Gavin Vaughan Mizuki Tochigi Fashion Without a face
Mizuki Tochigi @mizukitochigi_jewellery
Our Mission Welcome to GoldFoil Magazine - A place where the community we build is at the centre of everything we do and stand for. Here we leave our labels and unite under the same cause - to inspire and showcase our work. As creativity knows no language barriers, borders, orientation, or skin colour, at GoldFoil Magazine, we believe that everyone deserves a place on the creative stage where under a spotlight they can perform their art, be it fashion, digital design, journalism, performance arts, photography, or drag; we are here to show you and help you tell your story.
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EDITORIAL
This issue at GoldFoil we are exploring the less traveled roads of sustainability, where bacteria growth, mutations, and a human-nature collaboration bring a better, more in-sync with the environment future. We talk with sustainable brand designers, engineers, and creators, who bring the future to the current times, pulling the focus away from the virus and straight into the 30s. How can fashion be sustainable and reduce its massive footprint, and should no fashion week become the norm past the pandemic, as more and more brands rework their strategies? Join us on a journey where we shape the future of fashion Deyvid Dimitrov Editor
GoldFoil Magazine <3
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Gavin Vaughan @houseofmesmer
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SUSTAINABILITY INTERVIEW @GoildFoil
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TEVEN PASSARO
At Steven Passaro, the designer has approached fashion by looking at the garments as not something seasonal but as something that can be added to, kind of like a painting on canvas, where you can add multiple layers until you reach the desired result. It is a message to the consumer to focus on buying not just sustainable pieces, but pieces that can be transformed, added to, manipulated to fit different conditions and seasons. In this interview we discover more of Steven’s approach in designing and the brand’s legacy.
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1. What was the inspiration behind the SS21 collection? What message are you trying to convey with the choice of fabrics and cuts? The Dawn of Liberty is a call for self-discovery and freedom. I want to give internal space for men to express their real selves. Showing that each one of us have the right to feel whole and supported. This season we have introduced the Act of Growth - our core concept of evolutive garments. We want to offer the opportunity for people to adopt a new behaviour towards the consumption of fashion. It is overall a message of transformation, inner change that creates external change.
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2. At Passaro you create some very elaborate designs, with many folds, drapes and pleats, giving the garments a very tailored look, where does your inspiration come from?
4. Did the pandemic affect your design process and did it change your direction when it comes to how you approach fashion?
Every season I deepen my work around the concept of self-awareness, giving new interpretation of the idea that the self is a set of folds, closing and opening hiding and revealing. Always changing. The design elements and techniques come from the exploration and research of body representation in the east and the west. Each culture has a way to dress the body, they wrap it or they shape it. Obsessed with tailoring, I tryto create harmony between the two techniques.
I don’t think the pandemic affected the way I worked, I am very lucky, I could make the collection as my studio is also my home. I put in place since the beginning of the brand a process towards a conscious approach to design fashion. The pandemic validated this approach as it highlighted the problems in the fashion industry that we want to tackle. In a strange way, I felt very supported. 5. Is there a celebrity you would love to see wear one of your designs? Which look?
3. The colours you have chosen are very muted, and the whole aesthetics feels like I would love to dress TimothĂŠe Chalamet, it is a play with the idea of self discovery. I think he embodies the ethos of the brand perIs there a story behind the colour scheme? fectly. The young, strong, and sensible man not afraid to define his own masculinity. In terms of The colours are actually the idea of renewal, the pieces, I would go for the navy pleated trousers, colours of the dawn, fresh, vibrant, and colourful. pleated vest and trench coat without hesitation. I wanted to give a feeling of hope and power, the gentle one. I am not used to work with many colours, it was also a challenge and compose with it. I tend to choose natural and earthy colours; they bring a sense of wholeness.
Steven Passaro @stevenpassaro
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Talking
BODY MANIPULATION With GAVIN VAUGHAN Gaving Vaughan (@houseofmesmer on IG) is a very talented young designer, who uses slime, embroidery, taxidermy, and combines his visual skills with science to create his very elaborate and signature work. In this interview we talk about how he begins a project and what inspires him to keep moving forward. He is working on projects which bring the future closer to us, with the idea of home DNA altering kits, and smart organisms embedded into his embroidery work using slime; and by merging the traditional methods of goldwork and embellishment with DNA alterations, it brings the concept closer to today’s world. 12
Hi Gavin! Glad to have you today and thank you for joining us for our November issue at GoldFoil Magazine. How are you today? I am good, thank you. And yourself?
I am great, thank you. For those of our audience who have not come across your work, tell us what do you do? My work covers across three categories which are - embroidery, sex, and science. My work is a blur between them three in a crossover. It explores the human body in different ways. Sometimes it is embellishing the body or editing the body in some form.
So you can create different sorts of garments and embellishments and that sort of stuff but at the same time, you do biohacking in a way as well, to edit and manipulate the body?
I love research, and I came across this phrase a few years ago called a morgue file, which sounds quite dark but it is basically a dead art, or a dead idea. So I kind of log things in, and I have an Evernote where I just put everything that I Yes, I use the body as a canvas, as a like in, so it is all logged into a morgue file where material, as a paint. The body is the whole I am able to later investigate the ‘’dead art’’. work unlike in an artwork where you see everything on the canvas, I use the body as a paintbrush and it all becomes an art.
Looking at your work, I always wondered, how do you go about your projects? Do you start of by doing research first, or do you simply come across a fabric or an object that you just start playing around with and start exploring? How do you approach your work, as your projects are very different and interesting, some of them are crazy scientific, while others are very creative?
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Okay, so that is very interesting. It is kind with craft. The craft that I did was for goldof like a scrapbook in a sense, where you work embroidery and a lot of the gold-work can go back to later and use the idea. technique are nowadays extinct, like to create the material, it’s extinct as a craft to do. Yes, similarly, however in this morgue file, So I was combining biology with this extinct I keep scientific files and papers, so it feels crafts and I decided to use slime mould, which a bit more academia based than craft. is a very intelligent form of life because you can control the way it grows, and this way I wanted to create something more interesting. That makes sense. So tell me more about your embroidery work, I saw you growing slime, You have created a very interesting balso I was very confused what was that about. ance between nature, and life, and death. Your idea always starts off with something I won a competition for a gallery where I sub- very dark and grim, but then it blossoms mitted an idea of combining traditional craft, into something beautiful, for instance you and I had always been interested in sym- make these skulls with embroidery and biotic relationships between different spe- they usually symbolise death, but then you cies and how they work together, for them to manage to strike and show it in a beaulive. I was looking for how we could do this tiful way, and it is kind of mindblowing. 14
Yes, this is what my work has evolved in to become, I embroider with taxidermy as well. I create my own taxidermy which is embellished with crystals and goldwork. I don’t think they can be seen as dark things but depends on how it is done, that is my sort of niche - I take a dark object and try to make it ‘’bright’’ in a way, and colourful. I think it is just the style I have developed over time and it is a style I kind of like.
Gavin Vaughan @houseofmesmer Yea, you definitely have a very interesting style. Looking over the years at some of the things you have created. It is definitely my style. I would look at a bug, let’s say a bee, check the biology of it and the aesthetics and what visuals I can come up with, and at the same time look at Dior’s new looks. That way then I look for ways I can connect the two and kind of style it in a way that fits in.
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Okay, that ties really well with my next question - Do you follow fashion trends in that sense, or do you go and look for scientific discoveries and drugs developed to form your concept? Or do you end up just merging the two together? Yes, I constantly flip through fashion magazines, and browse through Instagram, following and checking fashion week, but I kind of prefer keeping up with what other designers are doing, not the major fashion houses but just new graduates and niche collectives. I am a bit more interested in more of the on the fringe society, my work very much explores that - I have worked with biohackers, drag queens; you know these are the people who were and still are on what is so called the fringe society, I think they are more interesting to explore
I think you are right, there is so much more to learn from them, than there is from the already established houses, they are less polished and they are willing to take risks and make mistakes. It is that, but also it is the fact that overtime they lose their styling and what the house was actually meant to be. But it is also about the experimentation, it is kind of sad to see how these big established houses lack that nowadays.
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Gavin Vaughan @houseofmesmer
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Mizuki Tochigi We talk about how the environment inspired her work, and how by working locally and starting conversations she was able to inspire her peers to join her in the movement towards a more sustainable way of living. Mizuki Tochigi is one of those pioneering sustainability jewellery brands based in London/Tokyo. We got to chat to Mizuki about her work, and we caught her in her Tokyo studio, surrounded by empty water bottles which she collected from friends and peers. Her work is inspirational, because unlike many, her way of living is an example to those who give her the bottles, and later on she explained to us how she got people to change their lifestyle, by bringing in their own water bottles rather than buying single-use plastic ones. Her designs include the use of bottles, cables, ties, crystals (in a collaboration with Swarovski), and in 2019 she received the Grand Prix LVMH scholarship.
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Hi Mizuki. How are you doing today? Yea, I am good, very good.
Mizuki Tochigi @mizukitochigi_jewellery
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How has lockdown been for you so far? Have you done much work? I was in London until August and this was my last year at Central Saint Martins, so I was preparing for a graduate collection and suddenly in March we went into lockdown. Everything has changed. It was tough for me because I was waiting to use the workshop, I had to change some of the designs as I could not actually
make new stuff but after I came back to Tokyo, I was at first working from home, but shortly after I found a studio nearby. Now I can go back to jewellery making and actually make something
Mizuki Tochigi @mizukitochigi_jewellery
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Oh, that is really exciting! Actually this morning on your Instagram I saw that you started working on something and it looked great, I cannot wait to see it finished. Do you think that being a sustainable designer stops you from being creative? We often see these brands which do these crazy designs and the moment they turn sustainable they only start making basic white t-shirts, basic jumpers, and you know, it is very boring. Do you think sustainability puts constrains on your work or do you think this allows you to experiment more?
My honest opinion is that I use it as a creative force, since I started there have been so many sustainable projects at school, and because of the limitation of the material, I have to be more creative, I have to think more about how to use it, what to use, and why, and how to make it in a way that people would be able to understand it. Personally, I did enjoy the project in sustainability and I think that is the reason why I started to use water bottles. And when it worked, people started to understand it and it became more effective in communicating with other people.
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I love that you mention water bottles and Mizuki, I cannot collect anymore of we can see a stack of them behind you. them, because I realised how many bottles I buy so I stopped buying Well I sent them from London. I collect- them and got a water filter ’’. That ed them from my friends and it was quite kind of little change was a bit surpriseasy, I only needed to ask a few friends ing, and it was a good surprise to me. and they collected all of them. I brought them back here, willing to use all of them Because you do not really use the traditional materials in jewellery designThat’s great because you are obviously ing such as gold and silver, but you use plastic, not just making jewellery, not just design- how do you go about designing your jewellery? ing but you are creating a movement in a way, because when you approach your I usually start with a research, for this one friends and you tell them about why you in particular it came up with a visual image are asking them for water bottles, they be- of an ocean filled up with plastic, dirty plascome more conscious of their plastic use. tic. Then some news came up ‘’We are eating plastic‘’ ‘’Microplastic is in the rain (or There is a story behind all of this. There was snow)‘’. So my idea was about water botthis girl, she collected water bottles for a cou- tles, plastic, awareness to the water and ple of months and later on she said to me ‘’ Hi ocean, obviously everyone knows it but I 24
want people to remember every time they buy these bottles and then throw them away. That is why some of the designs have a wavy sort of pattern, others have a more of a water surface pattern to them. Is there a designer you would love to collaborate with in the future? I like Iris van Herpen. I love the way she uses new technology but then she creates very mesmerising patterns and they are organic but they are also really well controlled. I just really love her work.
Mizuki Tochigi @mizukitochigi_jewellery
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This is a wonderful story of a brand set to launch at the Vegan Fashion Week in the Spring in LA but had to change plans due to Covid, and ended up doing everything a bit differently. We love this story because it proves that even in obscure times, a good idea can be born and thrive. We find the creator of the brand Fashion Without a Face, Scott Joseph, celebrating their first department store deal, literally 6 months after they launched the brand’s e-commerce, of which Scott talked us through the bumpy journey: Since launching our website for sales this summer, we have been going from strength to strength. We gained global sales with our first piece in this collection, the ‘M’ bag and we sold out of one colour in our first month. After the successful launch of our ‘M’ bag, I decided to go ahead and launch our second piece in the collection, which is our Card Holder and we have had global sales come in again. We are now also at proto-
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Fash With Fa
ion out a ce @fashionwithoutafacefwf
BIO Our owner & founder Scott Joseph, created the Fashion Without a Face brand with Fiance Peter in 2016, after making the conscious decision to become more aware of how and where they shopped. Working in the fashion industry for over 20 years and, more recently, educating himself on how certain sectors of the industry create their products, Scott decided to put his experience, along with his passion for sustainability and Peters industry knowledge and experience to use in the right way. This resulted in the creation of our first collection using one of the most sustainable materials on the planet.
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We make all of our stylish & timeless designs from TREES! Yep, that’s right, our leathers are made from oak. Their bark is farmed once every nine years when the oak tree is in a greater state of growth, meaning that the tree doesn’t get cut down, it gets to restore itself, bigger and stronger. Some of the trees in the farms where our leathers are sourced are more than 100 years old! Ramiro, who owns the ranch says, his trees are as important to him and as loved as his children. Once our materials reach our manufacturer in Italy, Monika and her team then lovingly put them together by hand, along with sustainably sourced metalware and linings made from recycled plastic materials. It has also been incredibly important to our owner & founder, that our collections be suitable for any gender, FOREVER!
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@fashionwithoutafacefwf
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@goldfoilmag
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