Barbara I Gongini - Regular, Irregular and Pieces

All images by Julie Helquist

Barbara Ì Gongini caught my eye when putting together the pieces for Noush Skaugen’s album shoot back in September. Now not only do I find out Gongini is yet another young designer committed to sustainability, but also one who believes in interdisciplinary co-operation with other artists within music, photography and film. She describes the SS10 collection, which is at this stage is 70% sustainable, by saying ‘it has a wide scope within the three segments Regular, Irregular, and Pieces; Regular is the basic, timeless and conceptual series, directed at both segments. Irregular and Pieces include moderate as well as ultra-feminine preludes, with great shape-diversities placed in the latter part of the category.’ This is then enhanced by the muted colour palette which moves from light to dark, restricted to black, white, grey, sand and blue. In fact, just to view the Look Book (below), due to this progression throughout the collection of shape, style and colour, is amazing alone. It is very Nordic in feel; raw, edgy, gritty yet very simple. However, it would not be out of place in London, and I would happily own every piece in this collection.

Her Press Release states the SS10 Collection is a correlation between functional clothing and shape-experiments, with multi-functional clothes and recycling as the two main ingredients in the construction, seeking to broaden the usability of each item, thus promoting the sustainability. I think, with particular reference to a correlation between functional clothing and shape-experiments, she has been highly successful. The multi-functional aspect, wearing pieces in a number of ways, is also another interesting approach to sustainability. As part of ‘Next Generation: Bright Green Fashion’, a collaborative project organized by the Creative Forum Copenhagen and the Berlin-based designers’ network CREATE Berlin, a forum where ten young and talented designers present their vision of sustainability in fashion design, Barbara is helping to build an international creative network. It aims to share knowledge in the field of fashion design and to access new potential markets and to discover ways of implementing sustainable designs into existing and future collections. Their ultimate goal is 100% sustainable products.