Helena GuimarĂŁes
Helena GuimarĂŁes,
Fashion Design Student at Belas Artes University.
Experimenting everything I can in the Art and Design world, forever in love with fashion yet not a cool kid, fueled by challenges. Contact: helenatiemisuzuki@gmail.com +55 11 989824290
portfolio index chita mermaid cupid sĂŁo paulo nights lightness
chita
The brazilian chita is a cheap and very colorful fabric, in Brazil often used in a very tacky way, as table cloth, cheap costumes used in the typical Saint John’s June Feast, etc. In the past, the people who lived in the northeast used chita to make clothes, mostly for kids, their own mothers would sew it, but somewhere along the years it started to relate to being poor and tacky, specially when famous brands started opening stores all over Brazil around the mid-70’s. As my mother would always tell me about the years she lived in a northeast farm and the little dresses my grandmother would make for her, I always wanted to work with this fabric and when I saw it being used in the costume design of “Velho Chico”, a soap opera aired by the television network Rede Globo, told in a little city in the state of Bahia, part of the Brazilian northeast, I knew I had to make something out of it, but not something people would look at and laugh, nothing close to costumes, nothing corny.
It all began with the idea of taking something very classic and mixing it with the colors and the fabric’s reputation; I chose a sweetheart neck in a cropped top and a three pleats, below-the-knee length skirt.
I had the opportunity in draping class, where I was assigned to make a top and a bottom from scratch and the next pages tell a little bit of my creative process, inspirations and the final result.
Here you can see stills of the soap opera, the chita was used in the housemaid costume, and, it seemed, as she was the only maid who wore colourful, different and old fashioned clothes from beginning to end, that she was actually a part of the farm house, which was of course old and had different rooms, with different colours and some used very saturated palettes in their designs.
mermaid
It starts in mid-2016, first semester of college, I was asked to take to class something that came from nature and I took a shell. It all began studying the shell, its textures and patterns as well as its colors and undertones. Then the textures had to turn into products inspired by them but without going too literal. After giving it hours of thought, I finally got to what I wanted: exaggerated body jewelry. After that it took me a couple of weeks actually assemble the finished product, it involved a lot of chains, so it was a real challenge to not get them tangled; I ended up with two pieces of the same project, the vertical chains and the horizontal ones, that can be worn separately, giving it versatility.The vertical chains come from the concentric lines on the shell, the horizontal ones come from the shell’s lines of growth. The urban mermaid’s, who goes to the pool instead of the beach, perfect accessory.
cupid
This is a concept print, based on the legend of Cupid (Eros) and Psyche,the god of love and desire, and the embodiment of human soul,with a modern twist. This is a walk through my creative process, research and inspiration to get to the print. It all began back in 2014, I was still in highschool; studying literature, neoclassicism was one of my favourite topics and in brazilian schools it’s studied with focus on a poetry book called “Marília de Dirceu” written by Tomás Antonio Gonzaga. He writes a lot about nature and all neoclassicism brought back, like greek mythology for an example. In “Lira XXIX”, Dirceu and Eros disagree on love being a strength for men and humankind, Dirceu puts love in a position of love as the source of the biggest mistakes in history.
“Se o mundo conhece males, “Tu os maiores fizeste, “Sim, tu a Tróia queimaste, “Tu a Cartago abrasaste, “E tu a Antônio perdeste.”
Fast forward to 2015, studying brazilian modern literature, I came across the poem “Amar” by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, like Gonzaga, he brings the subject “love” as something bad; he writes love as ungrateful, addicting and toxic. “Este é o nosso destino: amor sem conta, distribuído pelas coisas pérfidas ou nulas, doação ilimitada a uma completa ingratidão, e na concha vazia do amor a procura medrosa, paciente, de mais e mais amor Amar a nossa mesma falta de amor, e na secura nossa, amar a água implícita, e o beijo tácito e a sede infinita.” The idea of love as a destructive, irrational force was something interesting to read about, so I did some research and in a mythology book I found the myth of Eros and Psyche; love for them was in a word intense. It begins when Eros’ is sent by Venus to punish her for being very beautiful and very ungrateful as well, she drinks the bitter water of Venus’ fountain in her sleep, then Eros, lets one of his darts touch her and scratch her skin, she wakes up, he is invisible, and he, struck by her beauty, hurts himself with a dart without intention and falls in love with her. The episode is followed by their marriage and everything is fine until Psyche betrays Eros’ trust and he leaves her; then in order to be accepted by Venus and get her husband back, she is forced to do four impossible tasks, fails in each and every one of them, Eros forgives her and Jupiter makes her immortal. After reading it, I knew I had to create something with it but I ended up never having
the time to do what I initially wanted to do, which was something close to a graphic novel. It would have a modern twist, Eros would be a bartender and the story would be told in São Paulo, the bar he works is owned by his mother, Venus, who hates Psyche (who goes there every weekend and has an extremely bad attitude) to death for being incredibly beautiful and unbelievably rude because of that. Also, Psyche is very good at making bad decisions, like taking Eros’ shots which will be explained later on. I study fashion design, and this last semester (2017/1), one of the projects I had to do was a print, as it could be inspired by anything I wanted so I ended up recycling the idea of using Eros and Psyche as a theme and there was where my print was born. It started with the heart, which is present in the Eros’ jacket design, then there are two shots,one transparent, of vodka, bitter love and bad decisions,and the other sky blue, sweet love, is a shot of Pedacinho do Céu, in english “Little Piece of Heaven”, which is an indie drink in São Paulo, it’s hard to find, like this kind of love, and tastes like sweetened condensed milk. The shots are the modern interpretation of being shot by the Cupid. However the arrows bring a literal and very classic element to the print, specially when placed beside the hearts. The background brings one other common element to the print; being pink it’s instantly linked to unconditional love, therefore irrational, also giving and receiving care; but in this shade, there’s a touch of sensuality, that also links it to Eros’ powers, as he is not only the god of love but also of desire.
collages
são paulo nights São Paulo Nights is a photography project to show what it means to be 18 in São Paulo, it goes in chronological order from mid-winter 2016 to mid-summer 2016, and shows,of course, only a sample of the people who represent the youth of the largest city in America and how they have fun.
lightness
Lightness is a photography project meant to show, in photographs, the concept the author Ítalo Calvino talks about in his book “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”. Calvino brings, in opening chapter of the book, the idea of lightness and heaviness, the contrast between them, as well as their possible harmony. The ballet is a perfect match for the concept as it lies in the harmony of light and heavy; a movement that seems to be so light and precise, requires tons of strength to be done, not only that, the dancers are real people of flesh and bone,therefore heavy, yet they hold each other and themselves in a way that for the viewer, they seem to be made of feathers.