Thailand, Africa and the extreme elegance of an Italian shirt, revisited and rendered unisex.
Like a boat floating on the contemporary ocean of post-modernism, a fragmented individualism recomposed by positive action, good will, determination and research of new beauty and elegance.
It was in the days before Christmas 2016 in Paris, walking in these new institutions full of raw talent and creativity called Pop-Up Stores and growing like mushrooms in the French Metropolis (as all over elsewhere too) where I first saw the creations of Marian Eeckhout.
Among other talented creators I felt especially pulled by the work of this young French designer, his bold compositions made by combining very different national fabrics in one coherent item, a series of unique shirts and bags (made by recovering and recycling what was left from the making of the shirts).
I immediately liked and felt attracted to the extreme contrast between the intense colours and shapes of the Asian and African fabrics, combined among themselves to create something unexpected but appealing, a series of classic shirts, all with their own colourful twist.
I later met with the creator (designer and tailor combined), young French designer
Marian Eeckhout for a chat in preparation of this critical presentation of his work
and I found out more about his background and influences and how his life becomes a basis for his creations.
The young Marian Eeckhout has already -despite his age- a long and varied past, from Belgian parents of French origin, grew up in Brussels, did different studies and odd jobs before finding his way in designing and hand-making his trade-mark shirts and bags, a perfect example of how a creative spirit can find balance and beauty in putting together boldly and unapologetically, free from traditional conservative good taste, very different culturally and aesthetically fabric fragments into one very personal and coherent whole.
Like his own eclectic and adventurous life, enriched by living and working in several European countries before establishing himself in Paris from where he regularly travels
to Thailand and Bali several times a year to find inspiration and buy the fabrics and first materials that he will then revisit, interpret and integrate in his own creations.
I first loved and I am always inspired by his innocent coherence in creation by feeling,
his indifference to snobby and old school conventional “good taste”, his full-hearted openness and acceptance of difference.
The explosion of colour and anarchy of shapes the Asian and African fabrics bring to the elegant Italian shirts and bags -all unique and hand-made at this point- is a breath of fresh air of intense, chaotic, energised feeling in a Western world and fashion a bit dried-up in terms of real honest emotion, generosity and acceptance of diversity and alterity.
Marian Eeckhout naturally, by instinct and with no theatrics, is simply crossed and
penetrated by this colourful and chaotic alterity, the perfect postmodern creature, open in his flesh and heart, almost happily fragmented and floating in the unique global ocean
that contains us all in what remains of our shared humanity.
In coherence with how he finds his inspiration, he is concerned about recovering and recycling fabrics used and tossed aside as well as practicing what a friend of his called “chirurgie textile” (Fabric Surgery), taking old items of clothing that carry a special emotional value for their owners and revisit them by cutting away old and adding new elements, always colourful and rich in patterns.
I like these open-hearted, inclusive, colourful and chaotic elements, disciplined as it were in the sober, elegant and decisive lines of the minimalistic designed shirts and bags.
I also like this postmodern aesthetic fragmentation of the basic components becoming a harmony out of difference and a contrast that we can actually wear.
I recommend a visit, the discovery of young, fresh, honest talent with an optimistic message of acceptance, fraternity and elegance we can wear and feel better and more hopeful and colourful about ourselves and the future of our world, so grey nowadays in the Trump era...
Fashion with a real message, for a change...
