3.Minimal and Timeless, I would like to define my brand through these two words. But it is not possible. These two words were worn out and overused until they reached the point where they were emptied of their content. My goal through the brand is to revive these two words, and I see it as a rebellion, meaning a response. In this sense, I see Vautrait as a dialectical response to the hollowing of the words meaning. In my brand I try to offer a counter-position precisely in the age we are experiencing today, for the need to stay updated by consuming the “new” as a concept shallowly thought to portray the “Best”.
Vautrait product can be defined as something that goes beyond this temporality of that needs to be renewed every so often to be made better and relevant. Vautrait focused on traditional work and handcrafts which belongs to a different order of temporality, it is permanent, that is, there is no possibility of adding to it scientific innovations of one kind or another. This work will always be new and always be old. For me, design has no place if it does not include such a basis. A basis that allows the design to remain timeless. Timeless not as an empty concept that can be seen today emblazoned on shop windows of mass production stores, but as a concept which is essential today tier in our current crumbling experience. For me, design has no place today if it does not base itself on a timelessness, essential to our dealings with the destruction and pollution of the place we live in. Minimalistic design brings the material and the craft to the fore, celebrating them as the key to a sustained product. The quality of the piece is exposed, as there are not many events to distract the eye. This method also honors and reconfiguring the relation between the material and the craft as the key and a value.
Vautrait
Photos: Kristy Sparow
Minimal design put the quality before the design, as a design that support quality. Just like in minimum ingredients dish. It is a type of design that respects the story of the origin and the people who are for generations make this material. It is not a trendy design, therefore it is not temporary either. If it is not temporary, it is a design that turns out to be permanent and eternal. In that space of reduction, everything is refined into a single point of touch, between discovery and covary and between the cutting and the connecting.
The brand’s product speaks to a mature target audience. That is, mature in terms of thought and not necessarily in terms of age. I try to show the timelessness of the product and the craft of cutting as something that shape the body, thereby defining its existence and cultural meaning.
The body can symbolize time like a vintage wine, developing, changing and discovering additional qualities through its internal knowledge and roots. I don’t think it’s necessary to regulate the body and create an ideal image for it. But on the contrary, to integrate a diverse age range as customers of the brand and thus strengthen the position of a product that goes beyond what belongs to the system that establishes the temporary and disposable.
Fashion depends on sustainability. There is no sense in the mass production of something whose functionality is being disposable. Today, poor-quality products wear the face of desirability. Because the trend, by nature, leans towards temporary things, mass-produced objects will never be timeless, thus serving as something incommensurate with the sustenance of our environment.
Therefore, as soon as the designer’s dialogue is only with the trend, the quality is immediately damaged, and sustainability pushed to the margins. I believe in high-quality pieces, which prove a meaningful act of protest, against such an operation.
There is knowledge that goes beyond the boundaries of the academy. This is the knowledge that belongs to the craftship of the hand. It sounds a bit strange, but I see tailoring as knowledge that belongs to it, like for example a person who learns to play the guitar and in fact the hand is the one that learns and remembers.
In my eyes, in order to design a garment today, there must be respect for this craft and the past. A contemporary design is conditioned by dialectical movement between a critical today thinking in attunement with tradition, heritage and the craft of the hand. I believe that through the medium of fashion it is possible to preserve those people who are the masters of the hand. Only under their hands can be born a product that cannot be improved it is one and it is permanent. It is actually the opposite of what we experience today that the new is the best, for example an electrical product that is launched as the new and the best, will always be followed by a better one. This indicates that if something newer and better always comes out, the good in itself will never be caught unlike in craftsmanship. These diminishing professionals are slowly disappearing from the modern world, threatening the loss of this form of knowledge. My brand strives to take part in the critical preservation of this knowledge through timeless, minimal design, preventing the loss of that which can so easily be erased, leaving behind it’s cheap, vacant self.
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With love,
FWO
