Photographer Charles Freger

 

French photographer Charles Freger is not a fashion photographer. However he likes to take pictures of fantastic costumes, from folk traditions to those of the Queen of Samba parade at Posusje de Caldas a town near Sao Paulo.  
These garments weigh up to 80 pounds and reach up to three and a half meters in height and are quite impossible to wear.
Charles Freger always likes to take his subjects away from the context of the human event they are involved with and place them instead in isolation in the landscape. Last year I had the opportunity to watch this artist at work photographing The Burry Man of South Queensferry for his book Wilder Mann about folk traditions of Europe. It has some incredible costumes and certainly is food for the imagination of anyone involved in fashion.

Oskar Schlemmer I

Oskar Schlemmer conceived of the human body as a new artistic medium. He saw ballet and pantomime as free from the historical baggage of theatre and opera and thus was able to present his ideas of choreographed geometry, man as dancer, transformed by costume, moving in space.
These are some stills from a reconstruction of Ballet triadico.
The costumes are fantastic, changing the wearers proportions, the way and freedom with which they are able to move and the way they are perceived in space.

Rachel Sigmon

Outlandish, wild and colourful pieces by Rachel Sigmon. Full of fun and humour and using many of your themes of; sweets, toys and bright, bright colour.

Dominique Lemieux

Eye tickling, form warping, stripes from the portfolio of costume designer Dominique Lemieux.

Cirque du Soleil

Canadian costume designer Dominique Lemieux will hopefully give some of you the inspiration that you need for fun and humour fashion creation. Look at her bright colour and simple, small changes to body form that make all the difference to the final silhouette. These costumes were all created for Cirque du Soleil.

WOW

WOW is an amazing annual event and competition for wearable art, in Wellington, New Zealand. Above is a winning piece (2007) The Weaver Finch Colony from NP Jayaraj a design student from New Delhi that I thought might be interesting to those of you who attended Tim Johnson's workshop.

Isabelle de Borchgrave III

Paper, paper, paper more fantastic paper costume from Isabelle de Borchgrave an amazing French artist and designer.

Isabelle de Borchgrave II

Wow! these are Isabelle de Borchgrave's Kaftan's all made of paper and decorated with traditional designs.

Isabelle de Borchgrave I

The paper clothes and costumes by Isabelle de Borchgrave have blown me away this evening, fantastic inspiration for the NC's Paper Challenge on Friday.

Jo Gordon

After the drama of the last post I wanted to share this incredible head piece by Jo Gordon called 'The Kiss of Death' form the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection of millinery.

Ballet Russes II

More examples from the wonderful exhibitions at The National Gallery of Australia's Ballet Russes Exhibition. The costume design utitilsed and combined very crude methods, such as simply painting onto the fabric, printing and batik, with techniques involving great skill akin to Haute Couture.

Ballet Russes I

Pictured above are some of the amazing costumes that are currently being exhibited around the world( at The National Gallery Of Australia, Canberra,and The Victoria and Albert Museum London) in celebration of the Ballets Russes. I love the amazing contrasts of fabrics and trims these costumes were designed in the early 1900's during the Russian Revolution and First World War, a catalytic time for design, in Western Europe and beyond. (thanks)

Riitta Ikonen II, Nylon

Human Nylon "Life jackets, bullet proof vests, seat belts etc are made of Nylon. As a final project in Brighton I explored the protective qualities and the safety in this amazing material. I became Human Nylon to find out more about how and where Nylon is protecting us." Riitta Ikonen

Another very inspiring piece of work by Riitta Ikonen and a precursor to her more recent costume installation projects .

Riitta Ikonen I

Ritta Ikonen is a Finish artist living in London, she trained in illustration at Brighton but grew up with a sewing machine. Her work is unique and very inspiring as she creates costumes that then become performance pieces and are recorded and exhibited through photography to highlight ecological and environmental issues.

"The super-garments I make, open up new experiences. In my costumes tremendous things happen- to me and the people I work with." Riitta Ikonen

A wonderful thing to be able to say about a garment that you have made, to read more of this interview go here.

Maria Blaisse II

More stunning and surreal costume designs for dance performances, from Maria Blaisse these are called 'Spheres' and are from 1989. Remember fashion is a vast arena including costume design for film, theatre and dance, so your designs and imagination could take you anywhere!

Maria Blaisse I

These fantastic images are of Maria Blaisse's foam costumes 'Kuma Guna' created for a dance performance, such structure could also be created using neoprene (wet suit fabric). (Found) thanks to (Deb)x.

Amila Hrustic

Amila Hrustic is a designer based in Sarajevo, her portfolio is extensive spanning the disciplines of textiles, fashion, furniture and product design. This collection is called 'Plato's Collection',based on platonic solids of the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron dodecahedron and icosahedron.

The clothes are made of paper and are more suited to stage or fashion editorials. (thank you)