Body Pixel

I’m very glad that I will write here about three young and emerging designers Nina Bacun, Roberta Bratovic and Tomislav Mostecak on their project ‘One is Many, Winter collection ON SALE’… No, I haven’t lost my calendar (or mind… hope so…)… I know it’s a spring time… It’s just that due to some technicalities I haven’t had time to write about their very very cool new product…

Nina, Roberta and Tomislav (N&R&T in the rest of the text, as lawyers would like to say) presented their fashionable, wearable and very coolish all-purpose designed product in January at the exhibition which took place at the ULUPUH Gallery in Zagreb.

Photo by: Nina Bacun, Roberta Bratovic, Tomislav Mostecak (c)

I have to admit that at the beginning I had doubts about visiting the opening reception for several reasons:
> well, Tadashi Endo was in Zagreb performing the butoh piece ‘Shadow’ with propulsive dancer Marija Scekic (last time I wasn’t so fast to get my seat near stage, so I’ve felt like I was watching a performance in the last row at the football stadium = not recommended for a butoh performance, really!)
>> and I don’t like openings, premieres and promotions; I’m really trying to avoid it as much as I can (yeah, call me an autist! I don’t care!)
>>> honestly, I find people that are messing with design a little bit snobbish, ok?! (no mean intentions, really! btw, on that evening these prejudice were definitely broken, so we are quit with a priori thoughts here! Ok?!)

Since Nina is a real artisan very passionate about sustainable oriented design I couldn’t refuse to come at their first promotional exhibition as new members of the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts in the section for design. And because I’m really enjoying scanning for new emerging artists in all fields, doesn’t matter if it is a dance, photography, illustration, design, literature, cinematography, etc… just make it with some attitude and, please, have the guts. Well, being innovative too wouldn’t be taken as something bad!

Photo by Deborah Hustic (cc)

Anyway, N&R&T exhibited their art piece in several colours with many zippers symmetrically placed around waist and border, two diagonal to waist in front, and several hidden from inside. It has definitely a shape of a strapless dress (super coolish wearable from all sides – up and down; and yes, making you thinner! from all sides, sure!).

When you take off a trigonal shaped part from waist (the other one is also placed at the border), you still have a dress, and a cap too (in which you can look like a post-apocalyptic femme fatale version of Vivien Leigh just jumped off from some Enki Bilal’s new sketch on his drawing board).

Photo: Nina Bacun, Roberta Bratovic, Tomislav Mostecak (c)

Removing the other trigonal part from a border makes the whole thing a skirt. And, again you have a usable part which could be merged with the first taken trigonal part (a hat, remember?!) and you have a chiq cyber punk bag or a cowl for winter and early spring (reminding your evil female next-door neighbour to Umberto Ecco’s characters from The Name of the Rose in digital age).

If you are not a totally softie girlie type, but a punkish kinda sayin’ to the same evil female next-door neighbour: Siktir!, when she’s buzzin’ around you mail box for some fruitful info about your life; you can wear a skirt as a tunic (now recall to memory those two diagonal zippers in front, which are not pockets but slits for hands) with or without a cowl (terrifying neighbours’ husband too when meeting his greedy look at your tits). Above all (are you still following me, or what?!), it could be also used as a modern fashionable textile version of old termophors to warm your kidneys at windy days.

Photo by Nina Bacun, Roberta Bratovic, Tomislav Mostecak (c)

Seems like an easy model… but it’s not… Coz it takes a lot to construct and sew it at the end (zippers are tricky with different materials, that’s something even I know).

Unfortunately, I don’t have a talent for sewing… but when I saw One is Many collection I really wanted to buy a sewing machine and take a course…

As you can see, almost four months later I’m not sewing but writing…

# Here you can find short bios by Nina and Roberta
# Tomislav Mostecak’s bio is here too (he graduated at the Faculty for Textile Design and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb… good news is that Tomislav will continue his studying at the London’s Royal College of Art – fashion department…)
# This is my favourite project they designed: Play Away Violence – Game
# Nina and Roberta at the moment work for Numen and ZKM Theatre as graphic designers and scenographers…
# scroll till the end of this page and find several photos from the opening…
# Siktir in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc. means go away, fuck off, etc.