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As a designer who has always wanted her garments to be more than just items of clothing, it's no wonder Wellington based Hermione Flynn launched her latest collection through the medium of art.
In September Hermione kicked off her new Spring/Summer collection with a night of performance art, film, music and fashion at our captial city's prestigious fashion boutique, The Service Depot.
With a background in performance art and costume design for theatre and film, Hermione, who was one of the Westpac Young Designer's top 10 last year, has always wanted there to be an association of her garments with art.
“I want my customer to feel like they'e not just buying a garment, but an idea,” says Hermione.
“I'm interested in clothing as artisitc communication.”
Her new collection, entitled A MODERN RITUAL, was essentially inspired by the hoards of identically dressed business people Hermione observed while taking the bus down Lampton Quay in Wellington. To Hermione, the uniform 3-piece suit speaks of a 'modern ritual' in today's society; the monotony of the nine-to-five job and all that goes with it. As an artist she wanted to respond to the rules and structre seen in this uniform and do something completely different.
“When I decide to do something and commit to an idea then I'm full steam ahead,” Hermione laughs. And full steam ahead it definitely was for this launch. Having had the whole idea bubbling in her head for six months, it wasn't until five weeks before the show that Hermione told a friend about the idea - “she said 'you have to do this,' and so I did!”
Hermione's performance art piece was what she calls an “endurance performance installation” as the models involved are constantly active throughout the piece, which lasted for over two hours. The six models involved wore plain 3-piece suits and, throughout the course of the evening, coloured on each other with black ink and pens. The models moved organically and by the end of the night their once plain, structured suits had become the complete opposite. The performance took apart the modern ritual Hermione was first inspired by; bringing creativity to the ritualistic and spontanaeity to the monotonous.
The Service Depot was packed with people checking out the performance art and, of course, Hermione's beautiful garments.
From tailored pieces to wide leg trousers and voluminous capes, featuring beautiful fabrics, colour blocking and high necklines, the collection itself is charming.
Hermione also launched a fashion film on the night which has received a lot of online attention. Filmed and edited by Ryan Fielding, the film captures the essence of the performance art itself, which is exactly what Hermione was looking for.
How to translate how engaging the performance is in person onto film was Hermione's biggest question. But she didn't need to worry.
“Ryan recorded one of our practices and then he took it into his own hands and made it bigger and better than I had anticipated,” Hermione smiles.
To check out A MODERN RITUAL yourself head to http://www.hermioneflynn.com/ for the lookbook and to view the fashion film.
By Kelly Henderson
