The intimate, exclusive atmosphere of the comparably small room at David Chipperfield’s architecture office in Berlin-Mitte was combined with the mysterious glow of a huge moonlight lamp situated in the backyard as the models accented onto a shoulder high runway to frame the Fall-Winter 2014/15 show of Perret Schaad. The audience was able to watch the 21 looks of the collection not only from inside, but also from the backyard and the street.
The models presented themselves on top of a partly mirrored, partly marble-clad stair envisioned to achieve visibility and to accommodate the required technical equipment. A central installation turning the purely materialised transition space into a temporary show room functioned as a spatial division between the models and the audience by simply elevating the stage onto a single element. In its very presence, the object meant to dissolve the perception of matter in its built context, displaying the interplay between marble and mirrored glass in its most available version by covering a wooden framework with textured paper (Wolkenmarmor) and heating up mirror foil stretched around to generate an evenly reflective surface. This conceptual and equally economic design decision was constructed in analogy to the sphere lamp behind the room made from transparent textile in favour of a diffuse and yet singular source of light.
The layering of the opposite glass facades mounting the action allowed for a public (front) and private (back) view of the event, solely detached by a provisional bar between the street and the courtyard. The front row was situated around the interior piece, abandoning any clear form of hierarchy among the visitors but the proximity to the presented product. By doing this, the circulation within the space forced to accumulate around the purposely non-parallel catwalk and created dynamic, unpredictable and sometimes chaotic situations in contrast to the repetitively staged performance upstairs. The rather small scale of the object made the individually shown garments appear like independent exhibitions with the rough condition of the venue serving as an ideal scenery for the defined nature of the collection and its enacted presentation.
with Something Fantastic
for Perret Schaad (Berlin Fashion Week)
01/14
Berlin, Germany