Reminiscing the future: Collection No.2_1911803359

In 2008 I have made one of the most important decisions of my life – I decided to take part in Erasmus programme and go to Iceland. When I was deciding where to go, I was thinking about what kind of experience would I like to have in order to grow as an artist. I didn’t want to go some place familiar where I would simply confirm my creativity, I wanted for it to be challenged in every way imaginable. I had no other ambitions but to widen my horizon, face with my own limitations, travel to an exotic place (exotic as in different, not warm) and be paid by government to do so. Iceland seemed to be the perfect place for that. Little did I know that by visiting it I would embark on a voyage that would take me four years to accomplish and leave its mark for life.

At a time I have already started flirting with conceptual approach to design. I fell in love with science, listened to minimalist classical music and began to perceive fashion design as purely mathematical form of expression. That love still persists in my work. Being accused of dramatizing life, mathematics offers me a safe haven where exploring form had no emotional context and no other content but function. I don’t want to be personal in my work - I want to be essential. I shed the shell of decoration and form-for-form-ism. I let go of my personal motivation that is time-based, which makes it temporary. I begun to search for the timeless and trendless instead.

I was in my fourth year of textile and fashion design at a time, but on Iceland I was put into the second year of a three-year study. That was a regular procedure. Second year students had their own fashion show at the end of the year and I was expected to participate, thus making this collection my official graduate collection.

The starting concept of the collection was built on femininity that I derived from Modigliani’s paintings. I always found his models to be carefully drawn in thoughtful composition that emanated femininity. I chose the composition to be the main inspiration for form.  Placement of  their body parts and the relation between them served as a matrix on which I built my vision. That concept soon became something different. 

You see, I do not treat money with much care and fear. I live in the moment and money to me is simply a means of making that moment more pleasurable. One can easily say I am irresponsible, but I call it “being alive”. So I led a carefree/less life on Iceland, which has much higher standard than Slovenia, making everything three to eight times more expensive. Thankfully (for me) I was there precisely at the moment when the last financial crisis happened, which made Krona lose its value, which in return stretched my finances a little further into the future than it would have, had the crisis never happened. However, I was still having way more fun that I could afford, so in the middle of the process of making my collection, I ran out of money. I had two options then. Either to use the material I had bought for a small collection or try to find a way to make it happen nevertheless. I chose the latter. What I did was, instead of frantically trying to make my collection happen the way I imagined, I embraced my current poverty and decided to show a potential collection. I bought the cheapest material I could get. We call it toile. That is just plainly weaved raw cotton material, which we normally use in designing process to make test models, before we cut them out of original material.  To add a “twist” I labelled each toile garment with stencil printed information of how it was supposed to look.  There it was, my first conceptual collection. 

My teacher on Iceland academy was not too fond of the idea that I would stencil print information on clothes. She said a concept was never supposed to overbalance the collection. But in my opinion, that information was no longer just a thing that happened, it became a story around which the collection was built. So I did it anyways. I have learned then to work with what is present. I learnt that design is a continuous process that never ends and I was shown that embracing what is makes enough of a content to give the collection a substance. I still included no emotion; there was no preaching of any kind involved. My collection told a story that lives on its own, giving it content even if no connection to a person creating it is made.  Since then I am looking for simplicity. No more layers to the things I do. Instead I treat them as objects that create space for personal interpretation – precisely the way I think contemporary art is made.  It can be person based, but it is supposed to transcend that in the end.

Here you can see a short video of that collection. It is only 4 silhouettes, but I let it running longer for models to return, so that backs are also visible.

And there's that!

Reminiscing the future: WHITE TEMPLES

Last week I have started ”my reinvention”. Not out of vanity or self adoration. I am not a prodigy of any other kind, but of my own. But that can be claimed for everyone. There is after all only one genetic version of each of us - unless you are an identical twin, then no, you are not a prodigy of your own kind. Sorry. 

Anyways, I have decided for this action because in past 2 years I have been continuously deteriorating as a designer. I seem to have been slowly losing touch with the creationist inside of me and spent too much time on conceptualisations and meeting every single idea that I had with a harsh, almost self-destructing, criticism. Since there are no great ideas, but only great executions, I abandoned every single one before I had the chance to see, where it might have taken me. I gave them no chance at all. Troubled by originality and marketability I was jumping from one idea to another, from one project to the next like a rabbit in its mating season. I had no focus and nothing was ever good enough. In the mean time, however, I slowly lost my confidence. I felt like I have accomplished nothing. So I started to ask myself, who is Dejan Fon Krajnik as an artist. What does he have to say, and why should anyone be listening?

I will not presume to ever get to an answer, but I strongly believe that knowing where I was as a creative person might open a little wormhole, through which I will get the second chance to appreciate the past and with it create the future that is now. And maybe, just maybe, along the way, I will find the voice and someone out there will be listening.

So I will make my step forward by going one step back. Back to where I was. Remembering the details, sharing anecdotes, being a wiseass or anything else for that matter. There is no other purpose for this but to ignite that spark that drove me since I can remember. These “memberberries”, these “Make America great again” gremlins, this “30ies crisis symptoms” therapy, are just my way to find my brand. Like Alaska or Alyssa Edwards. I love them. They are sooo … I love them. 

Anyways, back to my point. For my first “Reminiscing the future” series I have chosen my first graduate collection titled: 

“White temples” 

It is interesting how I got to have two graduate collections. I was in my third year of a four-year study. I was known to be a persisting worker, spending all the given amount of available time in one or other classroom, working on any current project. I still am like that, when I feel a project wholeheartedly. I am devoted to finding a result. I was somewhat of an inventory. Everyone knew me. So one day a professor of the fourth year comes to me and asks me if I were interested in participating in the graduation show, because she had been watching me and always wanted to work with me. Of course I said yes instantly, I was deeply flattered. I didn’t care if that meant I would have to do the double amount of work from then on.  I was a third year student, doing a graduation show, under mentorship of a professor that later become my dearest friend. 

The theme of that year was Jože Plečnik, a famous Slovenian architect, and that spoke to me on so many levels. Firstly, I did not know him that well, secondly, what little I knew of him I admired, thirdly, he was an architect, which meant construction, fourthly, his style was antique inspired, which meant balance. Little did I know that when I will start researching him, his personal letters to his mother would become my main inspiration. I was touched by his love for her and how devoted Christian he was. I was fascinated by the fact that he used to make the entrances to the churches so little in comparison to the magnitude of the façade, that one doubted it was big enough for him to enter at all, and was expected to bow. Bow before god. I did not care for the god part as much as I loved how he manifested that act of humbleness – a bow – using solely proportion. Deciding that it is going to be temples that I will build, little healing places – churches, I begun to study human body, because “Body is my temple”. Then I found out, that his work is usually placed on ley lines (believe in them or not) so I decided I will construct clothes relying on meridians of human body (sooo far away from Christianity) And lastly, as the main inspiration for the shapes, I have chosen Spanish renaissance – the greatest fanatics of all time. There it was, the whole concept on four pages.  Sometimes only one sentence is needed to put everything in motion.

Here is a video excerpt of our fashion show. Only one model of each student is presented. Mine is at 6:57.

Here is a link to elle.si with more fotos and videos. Check it out.

Following are few of my sketches for this collection. It is where I found my "model" - big feet, big hands, small heads and long necks. Needless to say I always have to make more technical sketch for others to see. They simply aren't cute.

And there's that!

Personally Metamorphosis

Hey there, it has been a long time since my last entry. A lot has happened since (it would be weird if It hadn’t). And I will not go into details, the fact is, I was absent and now I am back. Or like Richard Fish would say: “Bygones!”

I was thinking about starting a new blog, because the vision for this one has changed during this time off. I wanted to connect more to the fashion and art part of my life. I have opened my own business and forged a fashion label that will launch its first collection this year. There is no time for idle thinking anymore; I have entered a realm of action. I need to promote things I do, or what we at theCollective do (the platform where artist collaborate on projects together, merging identities).  I have a clear vision of where I want to go. One could say that after all this thinking I finally understand my strengths and I have found my focus. That focus is me.

I understand now that I have to be what I say, and I think I say reasonable things. My fascination with science and the connections I find that govern the undercurrents of social dynamics have taught one thing. Everything is in fact connected by the strings of fundamental laws that seemingly bend when met with chaos we call life.  And that chaos is random and meaningless, and it is wonderful, because it makes life even more valuable.  Science has taught me that there are no differences between living creatures, that there is a link between every single living organism, if looked far enough into the past. It has showed me that life is rare, coincidental and therefore precious. The universe is vast and void and cold, and the end is inevitable, but it gave birth to a matter that, if put together perfectly, can think, feel and create wonderful things. We are stardust. 

How can I then exclude something that defines me? Science is a part of me. It influences everything that I do, sometimes explicitly and sometimes only in the content. It is intertwined with my way of thinking, designing, creating and living. Even though I set out to make a fashion brand, that brand is in the end me. And if anything, previous entries give my work a deeper perspective. Not that it is needed, because I like to think that what I am making is devoid of emotion and purpose, but it opens a space for observer to make one for himself. So I will continue this blog, after all brand goes by the name personally … Dejan Fon Krajnik. 

So here is to growth. On any level. 

My name is Dejan Fon Krajnik, and I am a designer in progress. These are my thoughts, anecdotes, works and all the things that make me tick.