Fashion Snoops

On Febuary 1st I was invited to see Gary Symor’s Amsterdam runway show “Fashion: Under Construction” presented in the Vitra showroom, which is a showroom for interior design. I was very much intrigued by the invitation because of lay-out but even more so by the sponsors mentioned under Gary Symor’s logo. For the greater part, the sponsors come from the interior and architecture world.

What do these worlds have in common other then all of them being from an applied design discipline? And so I set off to the Vitra showroom, where I was warmly welcomed with champagne and yummy bites.

The show opened with a metal construction in the shape of a diamond around the model.

Somewhat more commercial silhouettes followed this and I learned that all the clothing is made out of interior design fabrics.

What I found very interesting were the details on the technical strong patterns, that came across beautifully in the men’s shirts.

It wasn’t until after the show that I spoke to the designer Gary Symor and he explained to me that some of the silhouettes were inspired on Vitra chairs like this one:

Here a chair with bows inspired the design; these ‘hard’ shapes are used into the pattern and fall downwards once it is turned into a fabric, and because of the hard interior textile it can also stand into the bow like shapes. (The next picture shows a small detail of this on the shoulder of the model. It’s the second girl into the picture).

All the models wore white wigs cut and styled to their faces. The color palette of the collection stayed in greyish mid tones combined with black purple and gold.

Gary Symor comes from a mechanical engineering background and he addresses his designs as such, like constructions; “in the way I design the patterns and in the way I combine fashion with interior and architecture through shape, fabric and the combination of materials”. This coming picture and the first picture with the iron diamond shows how he combines different materials within a silhouette and how he plays with space on various levels.

He then shows me his work and explains how his mechanical engineering background has taught him to work with micrometer precision and how he likes to play with coupe in a silhouette. His work indeed looks very well made and the finishing of the garments has the same precision and finesses as the overall look of the designs.

The constructions start in small 2-D details in fabric and emerge during the show to larger objects that are 3-D and hold the body. This is how Gary’s work interacts with space on various levels.

I try to understand his fascination of the interior and architectural world and so I asked him about his background since he graduated. He has worked for Marcel Wanders Studio, one of the leading Dutch interior design studios. This was then followed by the uniform design of the Agora Theatre where he fused fashion and spatial design into the uniforms inspired from the architecture of the Agora Theatre building. And now he is responsible for the uniforms of the Grand Hotel in Amsterdam.

Gary Symor is certainly one to watch is his interdisciplinary approach. I was quite impressed about the scale of the show in these economically challenging times because he not only found sponsors, but he found sponsors the world of interior and architecture. Ensuring that he’s backed by the disciplines in which he works makes the brand have crossover relevance. After asking him about the title of the show he explained to me that he “will proceed in exploring its 3-D possibilities in the future and therefore his fashion is still Under Construction”.

Photos by Ruud Waterhout.