Who? Flora Taubner
What? Neo.Fashion.: Graduate Shows and Awards
Where? Berlin Fashion Week
Why designs by Flora Taubner matter?
Awarded for Best Design at Neo.Fashion., Flora Taubner describes her VALUE collection as thought sculptures.
Here, in her words, is why her work matters:
“There are ten outfits in the VALUE collection that can be understood as thought sculptures. The starting point for each model was a pair of contrasting factors that make a garment supposedly valuable or worthless. There was a lot of use made of social conventions and clichéd topics. The initial ideas were all based on a ready-made, a so-called objet trouvé. In the process, attention was always paid to which aspects of the objet trouvé are ultimately still really important in order to make the desired statement understandable. During the work process, these were in part alienated, fragmented or replaced by their own material. The aim of the collection is to unsettle the viewer with regard to his established values. To achieve this desired irritating effect, surreal and performative design tools were used. The irritation should lead to a kind of recalibration. Fixed values should be shaken in order to loosen up and to be able to rearrange themselves.”
“A Look at EDGE” curates a select few of Neo.Fashion.21 designers whose collections make socially relevant statements and offer storytelling through a fashion lens we don’t often see. Taubner’s message goes deep, is thought provoking, and, as she says, ‘unsettling’ about how we value clothes. Her body of work is conceptual and experimental that stimulates conversation in a direction of shifting our consumption values. Disruption of the fashion system is needed so that the respect and value of fashion as art can balance all systems – economic, ecological, and cultural.
Feature Image: Flora Taubner, designer, MBFW_Sep21_NeoFashionAward_PR_Getty_for_Nowadays_199
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