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Laend Phuengkit

Awarded

Laend Phuengkit

'Suwannaphum', diploma collection (2009)

Fashion Design

Jury report

East-West-Inspired Men's Fashion
How do you com­bine Asian tra­di­tion and moder­nity in Men's Fash­ion? The Zurich-based fash­ion de­signer Laend Porn­lert Phuengkit gives an an­swer with his col­lec­tion, with which he ob­tained his bach­e­lor's de­gree at the Uni­ver­sity of Art and De­sign Basel in 2009. For Phuengkit, who was born in Thai­land and raised in Switzer­land, mix­ing forms is the start­ing point for his de­sign work. The fash­ion de­signer sees him­self as an in­ter­me­di­ary be­tween two worlds, Asia and the West. This hy­brid in­spi­ra­tion is pro­gram­matic for him: 'To un­der­stand, de­scribe and mix the Other is be­com­ing a task for me', Phuengkit writes. 'One way of ap­proach­ing the Other is to par­tic­i­pate in its life and to com­mu­ni­cate with it. To let it tell its story.' All over Asia, the Sarong, an Asian wrap-around gar­ment for men and as such the male equiv­a­lent of the sari for women, is more than just a men's skirt. Rather, the Sarong is a mul­ti­func­tional piece of cloth which if nec­es­sary can be used to cover the whole body and is suit­able even for car­ry­ing a baby. With its es­pe­cially beau­ti­ful flow, this wrap-around gar­ment greatly dif­fers from West­ern clothes which tend to give a rather rigid out­line to the body rather than play­fully flow­ing around it. This means that the Sarong pre­sents the body in a light that is very dif­fer­ent from Eu­ro­pean cloth­ing. In his at­trac­tive fi­nal-year pro­ject col­lec­tion, Phuengkit adeptly com­bines tra­di­tional wrap­ping tech­niques from Asia with the body-cen­tred west­ern cuts and de­signs. His ad­justed wrap­ping tech­nique re­sults in un­usual trousers, shirts draped around the upper body and el­e­gantly flow­ing skirt-like whole-body gar­ments. Com­plex or­na­men­tal em­broi­dery is done by hand, giv­ing the clothes an ex­otic touch over and above their ori­en­tal shapes. Phuengkit's gar­ments are com­bined with West­ern shirts and T-shirts, out­sized scarves and train­ers. Thus an at­trac­tive sym­bio­sis of Ori­ent and Oc­ci­dent is cre­ated, suit­able for men who have the courage to wear such an un­usual form com­bi­na­tion.
Peter Stohler

Biography

Laend Phuengkit
Born in
1981
Education
Fashion Designer

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