Motivated by the possibility of exhibiting their productions in a fashion show and a workshop organised by the Municipality of Córdoba, several groups of students from the Tecnicatura Universitaria de Diseño de Indumentaria of the Provincial University of Córdoba set themselves the task of generating original collections of clothes.
The call revolved around the slogan “40 years of democracy” and the participants had to go through a pre-qualifying phase, in charge of a jury composed of authorities and teachers of the Faculty of Art and Design of the UPC and a municipal official of the Centro Verde Telas. Among the eight competing teams, the one that would finally participate in the parade and workshop would be chosen.
Beyond the results, in this case, circumstantial, we were interested in the creation of one of the teams, made up of young people between 20 and 22 years old who are in the third year of their degree, because of the name and meanings they gave to their collection “Incertidumbre” (Uncertainty), undoubtedly conceived from the possibility of expressing a generational message.
At the present juncture, Argentina is going through a turbulent period of great uncertainty, marked by the appearance on the social scene of retrograde forces that question the achievements and advances in rights made in democracy.
Against this backdrop, we were impressed by the way in which these young people approached a disruptive and at the same time constructive interpellation from their own experiences and feelings. Without denying the efforts and contributions of previous generations, they highlighted the existential difficulties of the new generations who do not feel represented by a proposal for a society that does not satisfy their needs and aspirations.
The group’s general objective was to design a collection made up of ten outfits inspired by the framework of 40 years of democracy, generating an impact that manages to transmit a sense of uncertainty.
In the task of translating the concepts into their design, three specific objectives were also set:
– to express the youth’s vision of the past and how it affects today’s reality through a progressive transformation from rigid to soft sets.
– to work with the fundamentals of colour psychology in the creative process by representing negative feelings, indeterminacy, revolution, mystery and truth.
– generating a sense of uncertainty in the designs through wide silhouettes that lose focus of the actual wearing body, covered faces, heavy textiles and cruxes.
Then we give way to the words and productions of “Cuatro Elementos”, a group formed by Fiorella Haedo Brandana, Paulina Peralta, Lautaro Kalcher and Ana Tolcachier, who in the course of the work showed an enormous collaboration vocation, joy and love for the collective creative work and an admirable spirit of teamwork.
Rationale for the collection
In their presentation to the jury, the students based their designs on the following concepts:
“In our country, the last 40 years have been in democracy, however, during this time we have oscillated between situations of greater and lesser stillness that have confused the Argentinean people more than once. That is why this collection takes the concept of uncertainty as an inspirational axis, understanding this as the lack of security, confidence, or certainty about a certain aspect, creating a state of unease because of not having total control of a situation, making it impossible to describe exactly an existing state, a possible outcome or future, related to the feelings that young people experience in the present and the future of society.
The 40 years of democracy laid the foundations for the life in society that we know, but we are so immersed in uncertainty that right now we do not know what future we are facing, what awaits us, we do not know what to do in the long term and this limits us in thinking about who we want to be.
In order to represent the proposed concept, the theory developed in the psychology of colour is taken into account, which states that colour does not depend purely on physical matters but also on perception, thus involving the human brain and the mechanisms of the sense of sight. This is how Goethe brings up the concept of subjectivity, i.e., how each individual perceives each colour frequency and how it affects him or her. Thus, colour has the ability to stimulate, depress, cheer, arouse active or passive attitudes. Based on this, each of the chosen colours was given the importance of the meaning they reflect within the aforementioned study.
The collection is presented in an orderly fashion in order to represent a journey, a story that revolves around the concept of uncertainty and the various observations and feelings that it conveys. The first five outfits feature harder lines and heavy textiles, reflecting the spaces in which uncertainty causes despair, questions, and issues that are not resolved in our minds. These lines will be softened little by little to imply that no matter how difficult it is to be lost, the coming results must not always be negative.
As a characteristic of the collection, all the outfits have wide and enveloping silhouettes that completely cover the body, including the face and head of the wearer. This last detail is intended to make the viewer curious about who is behind these textiles, their history, and their identity.
Continuing with the timbre points that connect the collection and give meaning to it, the cruxes that appear in an exaggerated way stand out, representing the sensation of being entangled and anchored in uncertainty and the difficulty that this generates to know what is certain and the reality with which we coexist”.
Undoubtedly, a sincere and powerful reflection that transcends the framework of the challenge outlined, placing the need to revitalise and take the much talked about democracy to new horizons that take into account the yearnings and creative intention of the new generations.
