{"id":42143,"date":"2019-03-29T23:58:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T03:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=42143"},"modified":"2019-03-30T00:11:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T04:11:50","slug":"both-fashion-forward-and-nostalgic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/both-fashion-forward-and-nostalgic\/","title":{"rendered":"A Jacket Both Fashion Forward and Nostalgic"},"content":{"rendered":"

My enthusiasm for floofy, puffy, and ruffled clothes<\/a> has been on the upswing for years now, so I don’t know why I forgot to share this gorgeous puffer jacket I saw in November!<\/p>\n

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It’s like … bondage ruffles. Jacket by Mona Ye.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

This piece is by Mona Ye, and I saw it at an exhibit of student work at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The students were given Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World<\/em><\/a> as a theme. That was one of my favorite books in high school. I certainly hoped I wouldn’t live to see it come true, yet here we are.\u00a0 I suppose someone high up at FIT feels the same way.<\/p>\n

About her design, Mona wrote:<\/p>\n

“Throughout Brave New World, people are being controlled and helplessly confined within their own minds. I wanted to express the feeling of being trapped and the helplessness of trying to escape but with no relief.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe that’s why I put off sharing this jacket. I create jewelry designs inspired by murdering<\/a> and murdered women<\/a>, and even I feel a little grim after reading that description. But it’s not unusual for dark thoughts to be turned into works of great beauty: Look at everything Alexander McQueen ever designed!<\/p>\n

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A closer look at Mona’s jacket.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

In case you’re not sure what you’re looking at, there’s a transparent outer shell that is containing all the ruffles.<\/p>\n

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An even closer look.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

Another designer who does a lot of work at overseas factories told me that this fabric style is a big trend in the making — everyone is working on it.<\/p>\n

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I would have bought this right then if I could have.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

Feeling (temporarily) like a wise fashion historian, I told him the technique reminded me of a feather-filled dress Louis Vuitton made in 2010. I got to see a swatch of the actual fabric used.<\/p>\n

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Vuitton fabric swatch.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n

Both Rachel Bilson and Miranda Kerr wore this dress. Bilson wore it to the Costume Institute Ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in May 2010.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>