Thai designer label Vinn Patararin pushes boundaries with technology-driven clothes

Cutting-edge and highly experimental in textile development, VINN PATARARIN is a Thai multi-disciplinary fashion design brand to look out for!

It thrills us to discover the brand, which was formed by designer duo Vinn Chokkhatiwat and Patararin Ponprast, who comes from a background of architecture, fashion and art respectively, and hails from Thailand.

Vinn has a Master degree in design and contemporary technology at L’ENSCI, Les Aterlier,Paris. He has previously interned for Dutch Haute Couture House Iris Van Herpen herself, who is iconised by her usage of 3D printing and out-of-this-world silhouettes.

Patararin, on the other hand, is a graduate of Srinakharinwirot University, a major fashion design school in Thailand. Her past work experiences include internships with Tunisian-born couturier Azzedine Alaïa and a German specialty womenswear clothing brand, Katharina Gruber.

Due to their diversified background experiences from the various fields and taste for innovation in cross-disciplinary, the brand has since created a series of clothing with a material-based approach in craftsmanship, often questioning the issues of textiles as material, and their roles and relationships between the clothing and wearer, such as being complimentary to each other or causing friction in the arena of high tech meets low tech, sparking about interesting perspectives on the overall looks in the context of post-modern culture.

Otherwise, their debut collection is also epitomised by elements that are dictated as going beyond traditional pattern making, and what is said to be contemporary and out-of-the-box.

As a result, the human body is being severely challenged in the brand’s debut ‘Mon Ombre’ collection, being put in instances whether the body is seen as a moving architecture whose space between each layer creates dynamic volume, silhouette, shade and shadow – a canvas of sort that recreates the very definition of what is space and what is ‘alive’ in metaphorical stances.

Not only that, the usage of transparent and translucent textiles also brings about the atmosphere of the environment and the colour of background into the garment.

Interestingly, the lattice-patterned, intricate, laser cut-out detailing on the surface of all the garments in the collection; a mesh fabric, which drips down all the way to the floor in certain looks, portrays an apparent likeness to clusters of membrane chips and filters being held under the microscopic lens in a science lab, heightening the link between what is body and what clothe the body, and the possibility that the membranes are being ‘worn on the sleeves’ of the wearer – challenging the ‘ways of seeing’, which was championed by English art critic John Berger in 1972.

I personally enjoy the fact that the collection is conceived to address something ephemeral yet was created in a timeless, elegant manner. The silhouettes were rather sporty yet they looked incredibly technologically advanced in terms of the fabric structures– and it’s almost mind-boggling to that extent.

A classic case of marriage between architecture and fashion, don’t you think?

To date, VINN PATARARIN has since showcased their full debut collection in Copenhagen Fashion Week 2015 in the first week of August 2014; a breakthrough for the brand, followed by a showroom experience presented by Bureau Seutail Showroom in Paris Fashion Week 2014 from September through to October 2014, as well as a fashion show at Mercedes-Benz Stylo Asia Fashion Week Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in October 2014.

Here are some photos that highlight the events of both their runway showcase and trade show in Copenhagen:

And a video on their Mon Ombre collection:

Video credits:

Vinn Chokkhatiwat – Designer
Patararin Pongprasit – Designer
Chantapitch Wiwatchaikamol – Photography/Videography
Arpa Poonsriratt – Photography/Videography
Audrey Fontaine – Model
Sanisa Tulyasukh – Model
Magdale Brouard – Make-up artist
Withit Korprasertsri

And another on ‘Wearing Identity Textile and Architecture Pattern Formation’ by ASVR Paris.