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Dominic Knecht

Awarded

Dominic Knecht

Women's fashion collection (2011)

Fashion Design

Jury report

Sophisticated Transparency
In 2010, Do­minic Knecht won the Swiss Fed­eral De­sign Award with a menswear col­lec­tion; this time, it is a col­lec­tion of wom­enswear that is the cen­tre of at­ten­tion. The de­signs and tech­nique are not en­tirely un­fa­mil­iar to us - after all, two years ago, a de­sign by the same de­signer that utilised threads in a sim­i­lar way made a great im­pres­sion. Last year, Do­minic Knecht es­tab­lished his own label in Berlin. He set him­self am­bi­tious goals, aim­ing to carve out a niche for his label in the higher price seg­ment.
In order to cre­ate his new, un­ti­tled col­lec­tion, Knecht learned to weave, to bring the yarn to­gether in a unique way through warp and west to cre­ate a ma­te­r­ial sur­face. The de­sign process in­volves an in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the de­signer, a cut of the cloth­ing and the fe­male body it­self. Knecht be­gins by weav­ing the gar­ment on the body in order to de­cide where points of con­tact should ide­ally be placed. Where the fab­ric hugs the body, con­straint is cre­ated; where it is loose, the body can move freely.
What the de­signer is prin­ci­pally in­ter­ested in is the ap­pear­ance of the bare skin be­neath. Which parts of the body are vis­i­ble, and how is the de­gree of trans­parency changed by the move­ment of the wearer or of the viewer? In the case of cer­tain pieces, the de­gree of trans­parency changes with dis­tance, from small slits to com­plete nu­dity. Other fab­rics ex­pose the skin as the angle from which the ar­ti­cle of cloth­ing is viewed changes. Some of the stripes in the fab­ric lie across curves, shield­ing them from view. By means of so­phis­ti­cated cuts and in­ter­est­ing tech­nique, Do­minic Knecht has suc­ceeded in cre­at­ing a col­lec­tion for a se­duc­tive woman which, in spite of what it ex­poses, is not too ob­vi­ous.

Biography

Dominic Knecht
Born in
1983
Education
Fashion Designer

Web

www.dominicknecht.ch

also in

2010

2013

2015

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