Has Visual Merchandising turned into an Art Form? We say yes!

San Francisco might not be the most fashionable city, but once in a while it amazes us with a the creative input up-and coming designers, boutiques, and the work of artists turned designers, or installation artists turned visual merchandisers.

Kavin Orantes, the new Visual Director at high-end retailer Wilkes Bashford might not have planned to develop a career in fashion. But as shown in his windows bellow, he might have just found the place to express his love for clothes and creativity.

We had a little chat with him about the craft of directing the visuals at Wilkes.

Pre-fall windows at Wilkes Bashford

What does your work at Wilkes Bashford entail?

My work is mainly consists in the visual display of all the brands at Wilkes, starting with the window displays – from sketch to actually putting on the windows. I also do merchandising, and sometimes a little bit of administrative work, collecting records for the store’s buyers.

With your background in fine arts, how has this helped you to create a visual identity for the store?

My background in fine arts has helped me in terms of understanding color, and how to compose window displays. So, the windows are created as I would create a painting – starting with the rhythm, the composition, colors, the space, and the unity of it all. My goal is to bring it out, and push it forward into a more artistic view of windows, and not just have clothing displayed in plain air. I can create a story, and actually enhance the look of the clothes.

Also, inside the store I oversee the styling of the mannequins and forms, the color story of absolutely everything. The merchandising for me is more based on color, and that way I can have a synchrony in each floor. The point is to make it look beautiful, and then organize it, so that the customers feel attracted to the clothes.

Tell me about these two windows that you created recently.

The first window is called “From the Sketch.” It was a sales window. The whole point was to put sketches of the garments that we carry at the store. First it was just sketches of garments. And to be honest, at that part I was just playing, an planning to do a huge collage with clothes on the window. But when I was actually putting it all together I came up with the idea that it would be better to put “paper clothing” on the forms. So I created some dresses, sports jackets and shirts with the sketches I had done.

From the sketch

Sales window

The second window has a traveling them and it’s called “And away we go.” The backdrop is made of vintage postcards from different parts of the world – these had been collected over the years by Wilkes’ manager of both stores. To portray this story we used one of our biggest brands, Brunello Cuccinelli. Their garments are really versatile, and you can actually wear them on different occasions, everywhere in the world. They not only matched the idea of travel, the brand look is trimmed and young, and their color scheme and fabrics give a great example of luxury travel garments. I was trying to make it look cool with airplanes, cutting the window in spaces, and thus, framing the different looks on the window.

And Away we go!

How has your craft, and the different techniques that you’ve learned along the years helped you accomplish this kind of creative work?

I have the vision of an artist, but I need it to fit with the vision of a visual merchandiser. Now I’m using them both together, in order to deliver a better visual display.

How long does it take you to crate the windows?

The making of a window can take from one to two months, starting with an idea that has to be presented to the company’s visual manager to be accepted. Once they give you an ok, the project goes into pre-production, where we see what we need for the window, and how are we going to get it – for example, the manufacturing of especial items, the props, new lights, and so on.  This process takes about two months, and we build it all on the same day.

What is interesting is that we already have the projects of every window since the beginning of the year. These are planned according to the schedule of trunk shows, special event, and visiting vendors.

I also pull clothes from the store to style the mannequins. These have to be approved by the managers before dressing up the windows.

What is the favorite thing about your job?

Everything, but I think the process of creating window displays is my favorite part, because it is here where I can be free to create and express myself as an artist.

Images by Kavin Orantes

Hermès Silk Screen Demo

Hermès Festival of Crafts

A luxury brand is nothing without its artisans.

Inside a big tent in the middle of Union Square Park in San Francisco, in celebration of its 175^th anniversary, the house of Hermès hosted a free event for everyone interested in craft, fashion, style, and heritage to have a hands on experience. For five days, the horse-carriage brand, with its authentic orange color and 10-year wait lists on the most coveted celebrity-named handbags is celebrating the best thing they have – their métiers and craftsmen.

Leatherworker

About nine stations for different Hermès products took place, in which Lyon-based artisans worked side by side to an English translator, and pretty much gave the audience a tutorial of what goes on behind the scene of the charming boutiques we all drool over.

Tie marker

The art of sewing, threading, polishing, framing, beading, cutting, and printing are no joke to the house. Artisans usually have to go though a 5 year apprentice period before they can actually be hired by the house, and be the experts of crafts like gilding glasses, making watches, and sewing silk ties by hand – a process that can take 20 minutes after the printed tie has been cut.

Watch station 

Gilding

Some of the most coveted stations were the one from the Leatherworker Dominique Michaux, who was sewing a blue leather Jypsière bag (a process that takes 20 hours to complete, and only one artisan for each bag), a unisex product for huntsmen and women on the go. But certainly the showstopper was the silk printing station where one artisan printed 14 silkscreens over the 90cmx90cm silk scarf square. The process lasted about 90 mins. Silk printer Kamel Hamadou took the audience over the process of printing scarves, a craft that takes about 6 years to learn, and more time when it comes to fabrics like chashmere. Hamadou’s French charm gave him enough patience to respond all kinds of questions from newcomer visitors, and talk about the creative process for scarves. In order to present the customer with 10 new designs each season, the developing process lasts two years from beginning to end, and evolves, designers, engravers, colorists, communications between the Paris headquarters and Hermès New York workshop. Classic scarves continue to be produced, and ordered each season by each boutique’s buyers. They can produce Asian pastels and a Brazilian jungle explosion for the same design.

Silk screen demonstation

Scarves engraving

Another popular station was Faustine Pancin’s gem setting. Women can’t stay away from some diamond bling! The specialized gem setter has the task to set diminute diamonds over the whole contour of the best seller “Collier the chien” (dog-collar) bracelet. She used dentist tools and her own saliva to catch tiny diamonds and set them on specific wholes – as there are five different gem sizes –, before securing it with the same metallic structure. Viewers got the chance to see her in action and look through the microscope.

Gem Setting station

Twin-set lining station

Another insider tip, the brown, pink and orange scarf required one silkscreen to print the Hermès name and the design’s one in a specific tone of dark brown. Mr. Hamadou stressed on the fact that there are no special orders at Hermès. Each scarf has a 10-color palette option. However, no queen jubilee, or any special celebrity can order an exclusive print for him or herself. See, "when you buy Hermès, you don’t buy the signature, you buy qualité," and its the same for everyone.

Images by Laura Acosta

Lots of Craftsmanship from New York Fashion Week

Proenza Schouler

Alexander Wang

Fashion week comes, and what happens in our heads? New trends, already seen trends, trends! We see color, and we see interesting shapes, part of new brand statements for strong, confident women.

Reviews won’t ever focus on the specific craft traits that particular hand-work-based designers showcase, because that is not their focus. But it’s you readers who might not know entirely the marvelous things that go through, and behind the scenes, during the creation of the most coveted looks of the season.

I wouldn’t have started this blog if I didn’t think craft is one of the motors that moves and differentiates different fashion houses from one another.

Craft, since is synonymous of quality, also relates the pieces to special techniques, and heritage – if not of the house’s atelier, then specific artisans and trade organizations around the world.

Proenza Schouler

Proenza Schouler

On a good note, craftsmanship is not only connected of the Paris and Milan maisons. American designers have done nothing but taken craft to a whole new level of hip and modern style by using handmade techniques to balance the overwhelming futurism of their clothes.

Proenza Schouler is off to great things this year – and let’s just say that the opening of their Madison Ave flagship is no casualty. For SS 2013 they are talking collages. They turned lather into a light fabric, or what people may call leather-lace. Their patch-worked garments of leather were contrastingly crocheted together by Madagascar artisans. Dresses of diagonal patches of bold solid colors mixed with pop-culture photographs printed on fabric were a great statement about the bombarding-information moment we are going though. Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough’s perfect balance of technology and handcrafts in their collection is only a bit of proof of the modernity of their vision.

Alexander Wang

Alexander Wang

Another hip craftsman in New York is Alexander Wang. His collections are the epitome of cool in NYFW – alas the world. But he not only knows how to dress a tomboy girl sexily in black and white, he also makes it interesting to watch season through season. Wang presented dresses cut organically horizontally, which were later on put together with embroidery techniques that created a lace/pick-a-boo effect. “I wanted to start dissecting the pieces,” said the designer to WWD. “So we played with the idea of suspension and tension through embroidery techniques.”

Rodarte

Rodarte

Now let’s talk about Rodarte. The Muleavy sister duo has such an imagination, that me in my old designing days who never ever be able to come close to. From their unique world, this time, they brought a warrior princesses to the 21^st century. Garments had extreme angular cuts in contrasting fabrics, but the designers also presented fairly straightforward pieces of hand woven jacquards, and crocheted squares attached like chain mail in tops and skirts. Rodarte’s ambition in knitwear design has put this technique in the highlight of fashion with never before imagined possibilities in texture and shapes, and style.

We are left with the masters of cut, Narciso Rodriquez and Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein.

Narciso Rodriquez

Narciso Rodriquez is not as hip as a designer, maybe because he certainly doesn’t dress all American socialites on red carpet events, but his bias-cut dresses, and the ultra-sophisticated color palette landed him on a prime spot as a notable designer and craftsman. This spring collection added a little bit of extra handwork with wooden laminated sequences in all sorts of nature tones – another smart way of talking prints.

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein Collection’s tailored shapes have the power of looking sooo Calvin Klein and minimalist, and yet so new and complex every season.  This collection was primarily black, white and champagne, with structured bust shapes – think 21^st century pinups. Dresses were then over-layered by organically woven wire cages that added liveliness to the overall look.

Donna Karan

As far as Donna Karan, we know she is and has been involved with artisans for a very long time. And her collections reflect so.  Dusty sea colors made her SS 2013 palette of hand died, embellished dresses in linens and silks as soft as sea foam. I cannot forget WWD’s quote basically implying how passé feathers on dresses can look when shredded raffia has so much lightness and charm.

Do you think craft can be ultra-modern as well?

Images Courtesy of WWD

Welcome to Notable Hands

Notable Hands is a platform for designers that create one-of-a-kind handmade products, exploring the relationship of craft and heritage in contemporary fashion. 

We want to honor designers that work with traditional techniques, and showcase fashion with a basis on handwork and craftsmanship.

 

We explore the relationship of tradition, contemporary fashion and art.

 

We document and bring traditional crafts, such as hand knitting, millinery, embroidery, beading, and hand stitching to a modern platform from the perspective of designers, artisans and very stylish people.

 

Our goal is to explore the new face of crafts and heritage  techniques, and expose the visual possibilities of different mediums, whilst producing relevant journalistic content, and lively and entertaining media.