Cool Hunting

The Brazilian outpost of Paris-based creative group Surface to Air just launched an impressive collection in their store from the post-graduate class of São Paulo’s FAAP, a renowned fashion design school in the city. Under the tutelage of their professor Jum Nakao, a respected Brazilian designer, eight students conceived and designed a collection that taught them not only about the details behind design itself but the entire process, from inception to final product in a store.

The resulting 30-piece line for women is limited and individually numbered. Each item began with a definitive structure, and students were encouraged to then fill in the spaces as they wanted. Pieces seem to literally burst from their constraints, and there are dresses that embody a marionette feel with adjustable straps. The budding designers were also pushed to think about textures in their design and to analyze how the inside and outside of their pieces “communicate,” as Nakao put it. So you’ll find tops with wide straps piercing going from one side to its reverse.

The designs are ephemeral and fluid, and with colors limited to only black, white and gray (with a hint of red threading as a “scar,” Nakao explained), they take on a simplicity that nevertheless defies convention. For more images go here.

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