At the recently held spring edition of Montenegrin Fashion Week, she presented her new collection called "Concrete Utopia" and Ana Vasiljević ČelarVasiljević Čelar spoke to "Vijesti" about her impressions from Montenegro Fashion Week, her collection and inspiration, as well as the students of the UDG Faculty of Fashion Design, whom she teaches, and who also presented themselves at this event.
You recently presented the “Concrete Utopia” collection at Montenegrin Fashion Week. What are your impressions and are you satisfied with the comments from the audience and fashion critics?
As for the recently concluded Montenegrin Fashion Week, this is my third presentation as a designer, considering that I was regularly present with students, and my impressions are very positive. I am pleasantly surprised in a way by the comments, both from the audience and the media, considering that the collection definitely stood out with its aesthetics, but also with its styling, music and in general with a story that is a bit outside the usual themes, because it deals with architecture and a futuristic, so to speak, view of architecture. In general, I am very satisfied with the organization, I have a very nice cooperation with that event and I think that it is a manifestation that is progressing, which is why I decided to present myself there, that is, to present my collection this year within the framework of Montenegro Fashion Week.
You found inspiration for your collection in architecture. Can you tell us more about that?
When it comes to the inspiration for the collection itself, this time too, the theme is partly related to cultural heritage, only this time the approach to that theme is a bit unusual, considering that the theme is related to Brutalism, or rather Brutalism architecture, and what happened immediately after World War II in the former Yugoslavia. At that time, it was on a collision course between turning to the West and Western culture, and yet a lot of it still remained as a legacy from the Eastern European model of design, and therefore also the approach to certain themes that were related to, for example, World War II and those inseparable ties, at that time, with Russia. So my answer to that was inspiration precisely from architecture that fully followed Western trends in architecture, or rather the Brutalism direction. Even today, this direction of architecture from these ex-YU areas is very much acknowledged and recognized in the world. So my research was moving somewhere towards turning the story towards the value of that cultural heritage in my own specific and already recognizable way, which is oriented towards futurism, that is, a view of the future and of course with the values of sustainability and the use of techniques from sustainable fashion as well as environmentally friendly materials themselves.
The name of the collection is “Concrete Utopia,” could this be interpreted as meaning that concrete might not be so bad after all, if used in the right way?
Although the texture of concrete and concrete in general is somewhere the original association with brutalist architecture, but also with the texture of the material itself, which is quite cold and perhaps at first glance repulsive, I have placed it here in the context of the colors, and certain textures of the materials themselves in the collection, which give a certain, let's say positive tone, and structure to the models in the collection, so I think that here the texture of concrete is definitely placed in the positive context of the collection itself.
It can be concluded from the colors of the models that you wanted to convey the spirit of architecture and buildings. What other symbolism is there in the choice of material colors?
For the collection itself, it was important to maintain that monochromatic approach to colors. The basis of the collection, I think it's obvious, is made up of black and white, and gray, which is currently trendy, but for me that wasn't crucial, but rather that it represented the texture and color of concrete and so that everything wouldn't remain in that cold spectrum of colors. I also introduced an unusual shade of blue as an organic approach to color that somehow revives the structurality of the forms themselves and gives liveliness to that spirit and architectural approach to those clothes. So in that sense, gray perhaps stands out as the color that has the most symbolism in this context of the collection, and blue is the accent color and brings those sculptures to life.
At the same event, your students from the Fashion Design Department also presented their creations. How satisfied are you with their creations? As their mentor, can you tell us more about their work?
At Montenegro Fashion Week, the third year presented itself with the project Minimalism. It is a project that is actually mandatory in the course Fashion Design in the third year and at the previous Fashion Week last year, the then third year presented itself with the same project, it is simply a coincidence. We do a large number of projects during their three-year education, in those fundamental subjects, so we always try to examine some topics that may go beyond the framework of something that is usual, classic and which provides the opportunity for students to explore some new topics, their creativity, but also to produce innovative solutions that are mostly very avant-garde and unusual for the Balkan market, but are completely in line with their age and the current phase they are in, primarily that creative-research work. In that sense, I am very satisfied with this type of project and we often change the topics within the directions that we explore. It is true that minimalism was at stake here, but each student had their own theme within the direction they were exploring, and also by coincidence, there was a competition for young designers called “1664 Blanc inspires art and fashion” where some of my students also participated and they found themselves in the finals. So they responded with their creativity to the Blanc bottle itself and creatively tried to present it in both an artistic and designer way.
How does the selection process generally work among the students who will present themselves at Fashion Week? How difficult is that task for you?
As for the selection of students, from the first year onwards we have started to work on projects that compete for these types of fashion shows or exhibitions and generally in this selection we are guided exclusively by the quality of the final solutions and implementation. I must say that not all students who worked on the assignment themselves always appear at the fashion show. There is a type of selection and there are criteria that the students are familiar with. They do not do projects for fashion shows, because we have a much larger number of projects in the Fashion Design course than there are opportunities for presentations. So we select something that can generally represent the entire class in the best possible way with the quality of work, implementation, creativity, adequate presentation and the students are familiar with this from the beginning. To say it's simple, well... it's not that difficult for me, I've been a professor for over a decade, so I've had many of these types of selections, and in that sense, I'm very transparent and open in my communication with students, where they are initially introduced to the evaluation criteria for their project, and of course, the logical sequence after that is that those who are the best in that particular project have the opportunity to present those works. This does not mean that automatically the same students are always competitors for presentations, it changes, because each student responds to the project in a unique and different way, so the selection is made in accordance with their current presentation.
Will the collection be shown sometime after Montenegro Fashion Week?
There is no plan to show the collection after Montenegro Fashion Week, and the collection has already come to life, it is in Barcelona and is already on sale, so that is not the plan. Mainly because the majority of the collection is unique, but you never really know, because if an opportunity arises for some events that are oriented towards sustainable fashion, I will definitely respond. Otherwise, I am not currently in a phase where I am rushing to show at all costs at shows, and I also think that this is not the only way a designer can currently present their collection. We live in the era of social networks, so in parallel with the show I had, an editorial has already been published that follows that collection and which has expanded the number of models compared to what was shown at Fashion Week.
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