2007
Saskia Schijnen
  • SUMMARY
graduate of AMFI Amsterdam Fashion Institute, Amsterdam

ABOUT THE COLLECTION

My graduation collection is based on Ingmar Bergman’s movie ‘Persona’(1966). I took inspiration from Bergman’s radical technical approach to film-making in which he is making his own process of film-making and his tools visible and part of the story, as well as the two film’s two female characters. In the course of the movie the two character’s personalities gradually merge and until at one point they seem to exchange identities.

I tried to capture this moment by recreating the costumes of the two characters with second-hand clothes and layering photos of these digitally. The resulting elongated, layered silhouettes were the starting point of the collection. I went on to explore the idea of layers in a personality, or a piece of clothing by working with transparent and solid materials, and by playing with the order in which garments are usually put on. By using organic materials with a sensuous appeal such as silk, velvet and hair the originally more masculine and basic garments obtain a more soft and feminine quality.