PURE-FECTION IN HUMAN DIMENSIONS: KEEPING UP WITH SAFAYANTHURSTEIN
“We see the design, in our case in the fashion field, as an architect would imagine a house. The architecture includes a certain aesthetic and involves a way of living. It is the same in the construction of garments - if they are well-conceived and thought on a human scale, they will evolve with us in a lifetime.”
When we last spoke to Louise Safayan and Vincent Thuerstein, they introduced us to their way of design thinking, their very own perception of fashion, and their love for local crafts. Graduating from the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the two are one of the most exciting and promising talents to have on the radar.
Vincent Thürstein and Louise Safayan at Being Hunted for the presentation of their collection “T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T”; @urbanentdecker_
An essential part of their working ethics is to value the human factor behind every single step in the production line. From the idea to the final product, the human scale has to be the main concern.
As Louise and Vincent told us in our last conversation, they meet fashion from an architectural perspective. Only if well-conceived, the garments will evolve with us over time. This was already part of both of their Bachelor- collections. In the collection “Clan Destin”, Louise put the focus on protection to women who wore the garments, as well as binding them to each other - as social camouflage. Vincent’s “Mokushiroku” featured fabrics and techniques, drawing inspiration from various fields like architecture or Japanese fishermen.
For the aspiring designers, the research that is the foundation to creating a new collection goes beyond the borders of fashion.
Just recently they debuted their joint project
“T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T” in Berlin together with Beinghunted and Ecco Leather. The collection sees a more mature approach towards functional wear and an even more extensive selection of fabrics and materials. Drawing inspiration from the 1970’s surfing culture, Vincent and Louise stuck to their dogma of putting crafts first. Finding the right balance between experimental, all handmade production and keeping prices competitive in an industry that is highly industrialized and serialized isn’t easy as they tell us. But for the two, the true value lies behind the physical product:
“Through our project we want to gently shout our message; a soft voice behind every garment that has an intensity in the intention hidden behind it: a more human dimension.”
@Donald Barry Woodrow
To discover the “T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T” we sat dwon and talked with Vincent and Louise. We spoke about the philosophical spirit behind the project, the relation between old traditional craftsmanship and futuristic technique and what role a movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky played in the creating process of the collection.
Hey Louise, hey Vincent, for those of our readers who haven’t [yet] read our first article on your work, could you please introduce yourselves briefly to the Sabukaru audience?
We are a french/german duo, passionate about any kind of art, design, textiles, garments etc.
Louise comes from Guethary, Basque Country, Fr. and Vincent from Evenhausen, Bavaria, De. We both met during our studies at the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts - Fashion Department, Antwerp, starting in 2016.
Last year we told Sabukaru.online that our work was situated at the intersection of several interdisciplinary projects, an idea we pushed even further during this complicated year 20/21, especially for our project
”T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T.”
Let’s uncover all that together.
@Donald Barry Woodrow
The last time we spoke you just presented your Bachelors' collection at the Royal Academy Antwerpen, now you finished your studies there. How does not being a student anymore shift your view on things, how does it affect your work?
Studying or not anymore doesn’t really change anything for us, at least at our current stage. Being an art student mostly means having the chance to learn and at the same time work as much as possible in an inventive way, explore, having no limit in the work process, as well as in the result… We won’t change our experimental nor artistic approach, but we will adapt some silhouettes from the master collection, remodel some pieces more convenient to daily life, outside the academy of Antwerp ‘bubble’.
Design and technical drawing by Vincent Thuerstein
By ‘adapting’, we mean that we need to adjust some pieces that are more at the stage of ‘prototype’, with some fabrics that are sometimes too complicated to wear or to wash, for instance, our waxed cotton and wool shoe-pants with Vibram sole also reduce the costs.
The pieces are conceived as unique pieces, by manufacturers, craftsmen, artists, etc. all based in Europe, thus the hands of humans have a certain value thus it costs more, it is not following nor using an industrial system, it is made ‘a mano’ by a very few selected seamstresses, craftsmen...
We are aware our pieces can get very expensive… so we are working on a way to make our garments more accessible, trying to figure out ways to reduce costs, without losing our local manufacturing ideology, keep producing the pieces and the raw-material locally, etc.
It is not an easy task as we are on top of working on a very large spector system, a specific space, a sort of ‘research and development garden/residency’…
A space where any project within the project is possible, offering different possibilities, including the involvement of the customers themselves into the process/the making of their pieces for instance, or on the opposite, offer a full bespoke possibility for all the pieces or special orders, exclusive pieces. It is complex but the lab is in process…
Please tell us about “T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T”. What does this project mean to you?
The “T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T” is our second common project, after working together on the shoe collaboration on the Snowcross with SALOMON.
This first opus is the root and the very concrete start of our artistic association and our common story too. It is the beginning of something meaningful to us.
The project has a philosophical approach, anchored in the way we conceive the world around us, it conveys our point of view on a certain way of seeing garments, objects, arts, and the place of nature and humans among all, making one unit.
@Donald Barry Woodrow
Through our project we want to gently shout our message; a soft voice behind every garment that has an intensity in the intention hidden behind it: a more human dimension.
When we had fittings, shootings with models or friends, we realized that all of them were feeling good in the garments, they didn’t want to give them back! That is exactly the feeling we want to procure; give a sense of excitement and joy. It has to be a happy moment, a comfort of body and soul so that we feel in harmony with what we wear.
We would like to have this « human approach », bounding people together, involving all the persons who made the garments and those who wear them.
The craft of fashion is basically gone. It is mostly still existing in old emblematic fashion houses, or with independent and autarkic artisans… but it has today, and for a few years already, a marketing purpose too, like any other trend using pretty words with empty meanings, such as sustainability, up-cycling, gender fluidity… it is very difficult to realize in the practice of course but only a few small firms try to contribute to change established detrimental and noxious systems, the rest is playing around nice concepts but doesn’t concretely do anything strong.
By going back to ancient manners, but also by seriously taking into account recent but decent ones, respecting the natural rhythms and what they can offer, by working essentially with the human hand, being mostly self-sufficient, and base a new whole system on it, maybe we can figure out new interesting things? Maybe a change could really occur?
It is at least the path “T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T” is taking; It is not about perfection, but it is all about pure-fection.
As you were saying, ‘T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T’ is based on a philosophical approach, what made you follow this path for this project?
We want to put the Human at the forefront. We pay tribute to the human being’s savoir-faire through a philosophical spirit; an essentialist, humanist and functional, practical approach that is essential to us. We are very interested in innovations and the way it is today possible to create any kind of impressive works with machines. But we are no machines, and we think what comes from human hands is unique, and will always bring this little extra of soul.
It is in the prolongation of what we told you in our former article, we want to convey a message through garments, different forms of arts, a message of hope, for a better tomorrow.
This first opus aims at uncovering what some of us, Humans, are looking for; a search for ‘the missing element‘. It is a philosophy, a state of mind that is embodied by garments, objects, art pieces and so on.
As a New Wave to the complicated times the entire world is now going through, we felt our first opus had to be rooted in a new form of balance, a hope for a new open world. We imagined some positive solutions to bring through garments, as an alternative for a brighter tomorrow.
We focused our attention on curves and openings, to bring some air to these dark times.
An idea joining the roundness of water, its movement, a voluptuousness also rooted in the surfers’ philosophy of life; a form of spirituality but also a duality between human and nature at first, that intrigued us and made us wonder how we could unite both again.
Surf is a sport, but also a state of mind, an attitude, a natural elegance and a way of living in society by sharing the Ocean with others. This notion of sharing and togetherness is rare on solid ground, outside water. The elements create harmony between people and participate to find a form of balance. Thus we called upon some surf roots but also to some practical elements [such as surf tools, technical surf garments, the purity of a surfing body shape…] for the spirit of this opus and some of the design features.
It is a project of hope, as a tribute to Humans and nature in osmosis. T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T uncovers what we would call, ‘the New-Age Glide-ators‘.
To emphasize our ideas, the movie ‘The Holy Mountain‘, made by Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1973, is a movie largely taking part of our work. The characters of the movie are looking for the secret of immortality. They are all searching for the sort of the missing element of their lives until they finally reach the holy mountain and realize that all this belief around Immortality was only illusive.
It is to make us realize that we have to do concrete things to reach a certain form of inner balance, a spirituality, and to make this happen, we have to use the full Human potential, and not steal capacities from the eternal nature.
We are aware that we can’t prevail over the elements, the surfers know this too when they grab a very high and agitated wave… they have to let nature be. This movie, as well as the surf movement’s expansion, has been released in the 1970s. And the aesthetic of the 1970s was for this opus a major anchor. The Funk spirit and esthetic that goes with the ’70s, the garments, prints, colors from this epoch, the attitudes, music, but also the fun that goes with this era, are the basis of the clothes we designed, and the atmosphere we wanted to create.
For this opus, we wanted to put the stress on bodies and their different shapes, which we associated with surfers' postures while surfing. A very spontaneous and organic form, suddenly emanating from human bodies. All the pieces, the accessories, objects, ‘paintings’ on textile, tell a different story and represent wearable sculptures, such as bags and sunglasses [Vincent worked with Serge Bracké on the collaboration with the Belgian company Theo eyewear].
Any piece recounts our ideal view on the journey of humans and the elements, in unity, throughout the different fluid and instinctive shapes.
As you just said, one important influence for you was the Surf culture. What in particular sparks your interest in surfing and how does it show in your design process?
Besides being part of Louise’s culture, and a hobby, we are both appealed by this sport but also by its culture, as it is for us probably one of the outdoor activities that make the most elegant and spiritual connection between humans and nature. Loosening up and staying balanced at the same time, a contrast we find very interesting.
Surf is not only about catching a wave and walk on it. As oneiric as this can seem to be, there is much more behind it.
It is essentially about sharing a given element with others: the ocean. Sharing rare waves could create fights, it is a point of contention…but it is a sport regulated by rules, which is also an aspect we find interesting. Like a profession of faith, surfers have to respect both the others and the ocean, bringing everyone back to the right lines. a form of humanity and spirituality is created by surf, and the very balanced attitude it procures, as it is about civic-mindedness and respect. Surf is elevated, spiritual; it is a belief, a proposal for an ideal world.
That’s how the surf culture entered in the opus, it was for us a base to start working on the spirit of the project, on the technical aspects of this sport, the utilitarian systems, but also for the organic and body shapes studies.
What do origin and heritage mean to you?
A lot!
Both terms are very strong, meaningful, they don’t necessarily have the same sense, but both represent who we are and the source of our work.
The ‘Origin’ refers to something we can’t choose nor change; it is who we are, our roots, our blood even, as a DNA print… in fact, it is a form of ‘poetic determinism’. We are assigned to it and can’t concretely do something with it; we can somehow mostly be proud of it.
Whereas heritage, in the sense of values, is subtle, is about transmission. It is more related to a trans-generational ‘gift’; something we got from our ancestors. It could be something our parents have told or taught us, that will enable us to evolve and participate in the process of becoming who we want to be. What the generations before us did, made; what they provided us, to add to our ‘life luggage’ and that we should always keep on our side.
Atelier close-up / work table for design and research processes
Heritage is made to be given to building the future, but always having the past in mind. It is an act of giving something we know or did in life across the times.
That is the reason why heritage, in the sense of transmitting values, is at the heart of our work. We don’t want to be part of something new, nor be part of simply something... . We only want our work to be involved in conveying strong messages to carry through the times, a sort of RE-evolution. Taking our heritage into account, imagine the future of it and bringing its new dimension into the world of tomorrow.
Some take it, some leave it, but we do take our heritage very seriously!
Your garments have a functional yet high fashion appearance, what was your main intention when designing this collection?
We don’t think high fashion, in the way we conceive garments, is a field that works for our project. First of all, High fashion is very general; it feels vague. Besides meaning ‘high exposure’, it usually refers to fashion weeks for example; it is planned, it is programmed, there is stress, tight deadlines, rush, fast seasonal system, etc.
That means no time to properly do your work or to create well finished and thought-further pieces. Exactly this future we want to avoid for our upcoming projects. The world of high-fashion is however a great place to learn: to get to know the processes and the ‘clockwork’ of such a huge system.
But yes, like in the original couture world, we have a tailoring and made-to-measure approach. Yes, like tailoring, we use very refined and adapted materials. Yes, like in an intimate, confidential atelier we work on unique pieces with persons who make the piece from the beginning to the end for someone. But we won’t have the exposure, high fashion brings as we already don’t function the same way; no collections, no programming, mostly strong foundations…
We don’t have the intention to belong to the high-fashion world or any other kind of fashion group. We are another generation with a ‘duty of remembrance’. We keep the past's mistakes in mind and look for a new world of tomorrow; a world meeting the old and the new. The path high fashion took could be seen as one of the mistakes from the past, for example.
However, as you know functionality in our eyes is something else. It has a utility, a purpose. Functional garments have a reason to exist, it is out of ornaments, pure. That is what we bring to our pieces: Functionality with a little extra shot of soul; the pure-fection of the human hand.
Studying many different materials was already part of your last collections. Give us an insight into how you are choosing the fabrics for your pieces. Are you also working with local fabric suppliers?
We always had a tactile approach to our collections. Beyond trying to find a visual subtlety in the fabrics, we try to bring some structure to a design, a hold, but also a touch that brings us back to different feelings.
Thin and fluid fabrics, refer to the ‘unconscious’ of fabrics to our view, something you want to keep for yourself, a confidential inner feeling, transparency that shows you through. Whereas leather for example is the ‘conscious’ part, it is a skin, something solid, rigid, primitive, and ‘alive’, it is concrete and it covers. Already with all the existing fabrics, we can convey a lot of messages, but what we find interesting is to mis-match them, give them a new touch or a different purpose, make them evolve, and adapt them to the necessities of today, tomorrow.
Fabrics are giving the tempo to the movement of a piece, providing the feeling a design aims at reaching, they represent the life side of garments. Besides the importance of the quality of the materials we make or use, we want the raw material we rework or the finished fabrics to come from manufactures or ateliers around us.
Most of the leathers used for this opus were coming from a nearby farm in Oberammergau, Bavaria. They are providing the meat to a butcher and tanning the skins for the bag project for instance, which leads to a closed-loop. The other leather pieces were made out of leather, provided by Ecco leather, sponsoring Vincent for his master collection.
We also worked with canvases that were waxed or oiled in Scottland or boiled wool and felt that was carved especially for us in France by one of the last remaining carding masters. Our virgin wool comes from Bavaria, some silk from Lyon in France we used for a few scarves.
We spend a lot of time sourcing the fabrics or thinking about new development around the materials we create ourselves. But we don’t always have the tools or machines, nor the savoir-faire required to go deep into a process, in the making.
That is why local artists and craftsmen, fabric manufacturers close to us, in our regions or not far in Europe, participate fully in the good spirit of the project. By looking a bit more at what is surrounding us, we might finally find our missing element.
Traditional craftsmanship or futuristic techniques? Where is The Missing Element more likely to be found?
T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T is not represented by a one-only specific technique. It is not just black or white. To give you an image we call it ‘grigio’! Basically, ‘grigio’ is the color that defines our work, a color somehow rooted in contrasts! Coherence has a major influence on a lot of people, in different working fields, etc. But coherence is seen by any eye and understood by most of us. It is consciously approved, thus it rapidly and easily comes to mind. It is the base of sciences for instance or whatever field that doesn’t include much space for fun nor failure. However, the world of art is different.
You have to make some room for different voices, you need to fail to find out what your art language is, you need to work on constraints and on experiments that go along a work of contrast, to create a strong and meaningful artwork. A "happy accident" is rather happening while organized chaos is in process and generally is less common when work is very conscious and too prepared or planned.
We work organized in our way, but we leave a lot of space to our subconscious at work. Organized chaos makes sense in our eyes and is aesthetically essential too.
Thus TME is situated at the intersection of both, the past and the future, both traditional arts and crafts and the inventive techniques adapted to the world of tomorrow. We highly respect craftsmanship, but, when necessary, also work with innovative techniques.
After several years of try-outs with different techniques for our collections at the academy, whether very modern or on the opposite very ancient, we wanted TME to be human-hand focused. Also in reaction to the speed, hyper-visual, and still the hyper-industrial world around us.
We already had the intention to give a fully artisanal and artistic dimension to this opus TME, but the pandemic led us to push it to what we considered to be representative of our imagination concerning this opus. We are attracted by any kind of contrast in arts or generally in the aesthetics, styles, and visions. We think the subtlety of the mind, as well as in any kind of work, is essential.
You were collaborating with others on some of the pieces, like the knitting or the surfboards for instance. How do you look for potential partners and what is important for you when working collaboratively?
This project was compartmented into different artistic projects, and these projects were always in collaboration with artists and manufacturers around us.
The location of the persons we work with represents an important aspect to think of. It is great to work with artists and manufacturers located in Japan, in the US, or with a tribe in Iran for instance, but we don’t want fabrics, materials, to cross the entire world to come to us, it doesn’t make sense at our stage. We want to have a positive impact on our cultural footprint and keep in mind the environmental issues related to foreign exchanges too…
For us, it is crucial to work locally. We also want the best for our garments, which means fluid communication with our collaborators, no transportation issues and avoiding useless pollution related to it, no custom fees that increase the costs of the finished pieces, etc.
Besides the local matter, we are attracted by similar souls, but with different visions, different opinions, and a different savoir-faire, a different art world, or simply from another domain in sum. What matters for us is to discuss and work with artists/artisans who are passionate about what they do, who have an interesting way of seeing things, and who have strong know-how or who are using their hands in their way. We usually develop a project with an artist for objects, as objects are a solid thing, satisfying a certain destination, made for a certain use or reason by humans.
We think innovation is in the gesture and the techniques. The most ingenious ideas that bring a surprising point of view, are more the field of the artists. That is the reason why we always tend to cohabitate with different sensibilities in what we do.
Sometimes we meet artists by accident and after discussing various ideas we feel like we should work together on something. But we also can appreciate the work of a well-known house or a shoemaker for example and think of how we can develop common projects. The other option is that we directly work with friends.
That was the case for the artworks made for this opus, realized by a friend we met in our first year at the academy, Dan Winkler. He is a real artist in the sense that he has the techniques and the talent of a gifted drawer on the one hand, but also a great artistic vision, something to say on the other. Dan drew organic figures, stones, but also falling bodies. The blankets and all the other pieces Vincent made in collaboration with him for his master collection, represent the nature and humans in osmosis of T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T.
The blankets/tapestries, the ‘blankestries’ were made by a weaver, Noël Saavedra, from Weberei based in Berlin. Noël took care of the four different tapestries woven in Italy and also the fabric with placed patterns. In this way some pieces, such as the woven pants with the fish motive or the after surf ponchos with some motives of bodies falling out of heaven were created. The falling bodies are a resonance to ‘The Fall of the Damned’ by P.P. Rubens.
Concerning the accessories, Vincent worked with two local bag makers from his area for his master collection, in Oberammergau, Bavaria; Leander Angerer, also known as, Racing Atelier who has ‘creative practice’ for motto, and Jakob Pauli. Both work on what meets technical, functional purposes, and craftsmanship. Leander, Jakob, and Vincent developed 2 bags together. A body bag inspired by a trail vest, made out of molded leather and canvas, and a more experimental and artistic piece: an organically shaped carrying object. The base of the bag is a sculpture made by Vincent from which a fiberglass mold was developed, and further molded with a tense chalk leather. These two pieces can be seen as unique artworks as there is only one piece per model, and Leander and Jakob worked on them like jewellers.
We also worked on a project that means a lot to us, with Mozes Mosuse, a friend who Louise met during the foundation year at DeKunsthumanoria in Antwerp before going to the Academy. He is an artist on a large scale: he paints, he is also a graphic designer, but he is a musician. Music runs through his blood, and he is now part of the Belgian music label Deewee. Thanks to Mozes, we could finally fulfill one of our dreams: meet both our passions, garments, and music. With Mozes we made a track, THEME FOR T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T. Abyssal sounds, underwater noises, mystic voices; a bunch of tense and soft elements that represent the sound world of T H E M I S S I N G E L E M E N T. We are now working together on what will be the next tracks of the project.
As you mentioned, we also worked on another kind of design, another kind of shape. With a local shaper [from Biarritz] Tristan Mausse, also known under the name of Fantastic Acid, we collaborated on 2 longboards; USF 1 + USF 2 [Unidentified Stealth Fish]. USF 1 is the purified version of both pieces. Chalk, biscuit/porcelain opaque aspect with a matte finish, 9’4. It is very minimal, pure, lightweight, it is making one same line thanks to the integrated fin, which also looks and feels like an underwater blade.
USF 2 is a board of another king… much longer, 10’0, it has a glassy aspect, a grey-green color, and a view on underwater rocks laying under liters and liters of EcoPoxy resin, made out of bio-based epoxies. Tristan used the leftovers from the foam he shaped to create the boards, mixed these foam fragments with colored pigments, and then added the liters of resin with a glossy finish so that the structure under the resin would be visible from above, see through. As a result, USF 2 weighs 25Kg, back to the roots kind of surf, like surfing in Waikiki on a wooden trunk…
Meeting Tristan was a lucky accident, we went to see him discuss this collaboration idea on unique and purified pieces, as we were following his work for a long time, which led us to think we should work on surfable objects together.
What is next for you guys?
We recently had an exhibition in Antwerp at St. Vincent’s, and we just left Berlin where our work has been presented by Being Hunted in their gallery during Berlin art weekend. We keep developing our project, representative of our cross-cultural identity, and make it evolve the way we always wanted it to be.
Besides our lab in progress, we are working on a design studio to develop interior pieces, objects, music… and offer a larger design specter through our work and artistic collaboration. Settling somewhere and being at the service of a design/fashion house for a bit are also planned. We are working on new collaborations too, of different kinds… we are taking crossroads, thus, as we told you last time, you can expect us anywhere!
Thank you guys for your time and all the best for future projects!
About the author:
Peter is a writer and editor who left his heart in Tokyo. As a trained journalist, he always is on the hunt for undiscovered stories and interesting people. Located in Berlin he has his bags packed to move to Japan to further dive into the Japanese culture and society.
