Author: Dariga Masenova PETER PILOTTO - ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL YOUNG DESIGNER DUETS OF LONDON. WE ASK THE MODELERS A FEW QUESTIONS DURING THEIR LAST VISIT TO DUBAI.
The English brand is wholly owned by fashion designers Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos, who studied together at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. The brand is well known to the Dubai fashion community for its colorful prints created using computer graphics and unexpected color schemes.
How do you choose what color to work with while creating the collection?
Peter: Like any designer, we have favorite color combinations that we come back to every season, and color decisions always depend on the initial concept of what it is inspired with - it can be the work of a certain artist, elements of nature or architecture.
For the Spring-Summer 2015 collection, we turned to portraits of the legendary rock musician Jimmy Hendrix, photographs of the 1975 Woodstock Summer Festival and Burning Man - and the collection's palette itself began to reflect their colors.
What techniques did you use when working on the new collection?
Peter: It was important for us to transfer the skill as much as possible and raise it to a new level, “above the prints” (prints are a signature element of designers. - Note. Ed.) Therefore, we didn’t have them at all, we focused more on textiles and technique . Worked with textures such as holographic organza, silk, embroidery and jacquard.
Christopher: It was extremely important for us to demonstrate our vision and aesthetics.
Therefore, we have carefully worked with factories to create technologically new fabrics that you could see at a show in London.
What challenges did you face?
Christopher: We try not to look back and are always completely absorbed in the collection we are working on, and it becomes our favorite. We just really like to see how, from year to year, our work is becoming more mature.
Peter: Each collection has its own pitfalls. It seems to me that the Spring-Summer 2015 collection was complicated in that we used such a huge number of different textures and elements brought from all over the world that we were constantly afraid that some fabrics would not arrive on time or the embroidery would be lost somewhere. Therefore, the most difficult was to coordinate the logistics of goods.
How do you deal with a duet? Is any of you pulling a blanket over you?
Christopher: We are very lucky because we can easily share ideas with each other. In addition, each of us is focused on certain aspects of business and design. The main thing is the distribution of responsibilities. For example, I work more with prints, and Peter with cut and structure.
Peter: Sometimes we work together, and sometimes apart. However, in the end, we make decisions together. A similar taste in design helps us, so the duo is functional.
How do you find Dubai? Does he inspire you?
Peter: Dubai is an incredibly interesting city to visit. Very modern and full of great opportunities and talented people. Christopher: Travel always inspires us, since we are both visuals, and it’s important for us to discover new countries, culture and architecture. Therefore, in the end, traces of each such adventure can be seen later in our work
