TUFI DUEK A/W 2012 | SPFW DAY #1
As a move forward from the heavy styling of native-inspired SS12 collection, designer Eduardo Pombal brought a cleaner aesthetic to the runaway in some futuristic minimal style. Inspiration came from outer space; more specifically, from that timely moment in history, back in 69, when man walks on the moon. As usual, Eduardo went deep on the theme, scrutinising all the pictures of this moment in search of references of shapes, lines, colors and materials. Instead of prints, textures and shines in looks that ranged from white and gray to metallic shades. The silhouette spoke of the eighties and stood adjusted to the body, resulting in an elegant and staid look, still very feminine. We caught up backstage with Eduardo to talk about the collection:
Tell me about this outer space inspiration for this winter…
In New York I happened to be on the release of this book featuring pictures of the space mission that took man to the moon back in the sixties. It’s something we pretty much know; man staking American flag, a big white rocket, a big white moon, and all that huge dark space with lighting spots. I found it curious.
How how did you translate that to the collection?
When space suit comes to our minds we go to sixties silhouettes, and I didn’t want that. I wanted a stretched woman just like the rocket, and that lead me to this kind of eighties silhouette, with more structured shapes. The book I mentioned provided me the color palette, the white, the silver, the copper and all the other metallic shades. Looking for fabrics and textures to tell this story I ended up on the stopper-shaped sequins and textured white looks from the beginning of the show, referencing moon craters. These are extremely technological materials but with a natural, handmade appearance.
And how about the green looks of the end of the show?
I first got to green as a reference to the Earth. It would be too obvious to make it blue, so I chose the green of the forests. But this is the dark green. The olive-green is from Barbarella. I watched some sixties movies for inspiration and that’s the tone of Jane Fonda costume at the opening strip scene.
Is this winter a reaction of minimalism and clean styling to the past summer collection?
I believe in the progress of the work. Last season, when I was talking about native tribes, it just couldn’t be that clean. It needed something very graphic and printed. If you take all that embellishment, props and that textures away from the summer collection, you’ll see I pretty much keep in the same path of structured and rigid clothes. And as I last season was all about prints, this time I chose instead to build it around forms, textures, reliefs, opaque and shine.
Which material have you used to get the structured details of the pieces?
It’s in the sewing, finished with leather and EVA, which is kind of a rubber that structures the suit. That’s responsible for the space mood in the necklines and sleeves.
Just curious… What was the buckle on one of the dresses about?
Those are the same buckles we developed for all the shoes of the collection, and we wanted to bring it to one of the outfits. It’s actually inspired by the mechanical locking of rockets, which I imagine to be something heavy.
Photographed by Jorge Escudeiro