At 22, Penelope Tucker is one of the few minds that pushes, one garment at a time, the boundaries of fashion. Along with many young, talented designers she participated to the Graduate Fashion week, which is held yearly in London in order to showcase the work of designers in the making.
Having recently finished her degree specialising in menswear on the BA Fashion course at Kingston University, London, she unveiled a gravity-defying collection by creating a line-up of menswear inspired by the esthetic of skateboarders flying though the air.
“A main inspiration in my collection has been the science behind skateboarding” she said, “To the onlooker it appears that the skateboarder is defying gravity when in fact they are using gravity to their advantage in order to make their tricks possible. I wanted to adapt this to clothing.”
Throughout her collection, she also creates silhouettes that appear to be elongated. The duck down gilet is made to appear as though hovering above the shoulders and the shorts are made with a dropped crotch and elongated pockets as though the garment is falling down, almost as if it was being pulled by a force.
Continuing with the idea of an elongated silhouette, she researched into ways to actually have “floating” garments. Using helium and clear Mylar foil (material commonly used for balloons) to create garments that literally do float above the body. This vest is held down onto the body by two straps under the arms that prevent it from flying away.
Her collection also incorporated an elasticised bag, which is harnessed around the body. As the wearer walks, the bag bounces up and down due to weights inside each bag pocket. The bag is made up of 3 individual backpack style sections, two at the front of the body and one at the back. This creates a garment that has a strong sense of defying gravity as the wearer moves.
Whilst being heavily influenced by the gravitational science behind skateboarding, she also tried to have elements of ‘real’ clothing in her collection, inspired not only by gravitational pull but also by the relaxed, cool image commonly portrayed by skateboarders. This is why backward caps were incorporated to a few of her looks, as well as skateboarding shoes.
Visit penelopetucker.co.uk.
You can see all of the Penelope Tucker autumn (fall) / winter 2012 collection by clicking on a thumbnail on the left. From there you can browse through each of the pictures from the collection.
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