ucy Eggleton
atasha PohybkoSamantha McEwan has recently completed her BA in Fashion. What we love about her collection, is the street wear, slightly masculine and super cool work. Wonderfully punchy and screams out to you with great zest and humour! This girl is selling herself to the patterned and colourful devil. With characterful Monsters and zero tolerance for compromise. This is our kind of Artist/ Designer!
We recently met up to talk to Sam about her work, ideas and what the future may hold…….
1.Now tell us a little bit about yourself and your recent collection.
I have recently graduated from the BA(Hons) Fashion Design course at Heriot - Watt University, School of Textile and Design. My graduate collection “Voodoo Zumbies” is a series of unisex garments for spring/ summer 12 that translate the importance of preserving the physical character, costumery and rituals of the voodoo religion whilst projecting the idea of a fierce personal identity into the designer market. After spending part of last summer in Cuba i became fascinated by the roadside shrines that were frequently appearing particularly in rural areas and the elaborate dress of some cubans sitting next to these shrines. I began to question locals as to the reason for this and was soon told it was part of the common practice of Voodoo also known as Santeria. It was not until later when i got home and researched this further that i discovered that over 60% of Cubans still openly practice voodoo alongside catholicism and voodoo is in fact viewed as the main religion running throughout the Caribbean. The fact that people still practice such a bizarre religion completely fascinated me and i wanted to capture this sense of personal identity and fierce optimism running throughout the religion, translating this into a wearable street style collection for future generations.Focusing on the idea of optimistic clothing the collection consists of entirely wearable, durable yet delicate pieces that mirror the creativeness of the Haitian / African people combining the idea of Fashion and performance that intertwine modern materials and symbolic gesture with baggy oversized printed jumpsuits, lazer cut bombers, hand dyed silk t-shirts with embroidered voodoo faces made from raffia, chunky knit and an eclectic clash of other textures.
2. You clearly love Voodoo and Zombies. Does this make you a massive horror fan and if so, which horror films do you love and which character would feature in your next collection?
I wouldn’t say i was a massive horror fan however all my past collections have had a fantasy element to them and i love the idea of designing characters. All my fashion illustrations turn into people wearing some kind of monster suit and i feel this may be becoming a recurring theme within my designs. My fascination with colour and texture when designing often goes beyond a normal every day wearable garment and i often then have to go through a process of diffusing down the design until it becomes commercially acceptable. I would love to have the opportunity to really go all out on a next collection and create something mind blowing without any boundaries.
3. If you could dress one dead famous Icon and one alive today, who would they be and why?
Oh i really can’t pick one icon alive or dead. There are certain people i would LOVE to dress: MIA, Karen O, Jaime Winstone, Nicki Minaj, Lovefoxx, Grace Jones, MC gaff E, Peaches, MS. Fitz. All basically performers and people who don’t give a shit about what their wearing and can make anything work. I would love to get into designing tour outfits and stage clothes for performers. Watching people working your designs on stage would be amazing!
Bright prints, Embroidery, chunky knits, JCDC, Paris, Andrea Crews Collective, Romain Kremer, Bernard Wilhelm, LA, TOKYO, Christian Joy, Paul Klee, Aldo Lanzini, Gary Card, photography by Phylis Gallembo who has been a HUGE inspiration for this collection, Original African Prints and Batik, Brett Easton Ellis, Voodoo, the Awa, masks and ritual.
5. If you had the opportunity to collaborate with one Designer, one film star and one Musician, who would they be?
I would love to collaborate with Walter Van Beirendonck the skills you could learn form him would be endless, i have always been a fan of the Antwerp Six and have always fancied the masters course at the Royal Academy but i really don’t think i would get in! Just being around him for one day would be so inspiring. His AW11 collection is probably the best collections i have seen this year!
As for a film star i’m not sure. I would love to work on anything Jonas Akerlund is directing as his films and music videos are always so bight and vibrant it would be great to be a wardrobe stylist on one of his sets.
And a musician would have to be M.I.A as the styling opportunities would be endless and i could really see her wearing half of my collection.
6. What do you predict for the future and what goals do you have?
For the short term future i am planning on expanding my current collection i feel that i am not quite finished with it yet and there is so much potential within the collection as well as certain garments that didn’t get carried forward into the production stage. I have been lucky enough to have buyers interested in some garments form the collection so i will be following this up over summer. I also have a couple of collaborations in the pipeline which i can’t really talk about until they are set in stone but they involve some tour outfits and will be MASSIVE! As for goals i would love to launch my own label in the next year if i can get some financial support so fingers crossed!
7. Finally, do you have any advise for creative people out there
I can’t really give advice as i am so early on in my career having just graduated however i would say don’t alter the way you design too much to fit into commercial briefs. I know it is important for collections to be sellable but it is important not to lose your creative drive and your personal design aesthetic. Never compromise your ideas.
Samantha.j.mcewen@hotmail.co.ukPhotography- Barker&McLean http://barkermclean.com/
Many thanks Sam. Good luck with future proects and we can’t wait to see and hear more from you!
Lucy & Natasha xxx
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