Sangeeta Yadav talks to budding designers Pritam Singh and Vishnu Ramesh, about winning Creative Excellence Award of World of Wearable Art competition 2016 and the inspiration behind it
Ever wondered how it would look if a rough and tough light grey coloured rock carved out in a human formed started walking seamlessly in front of youIJ Well, the recent garment by 27-year-old Pritam Singh and Vishnu Ramesh from Gujarat left everyone in awe when it was showcased on the ramp at the international World of WearableArt (WOW) Competition 2016 in New Zealand. Created under the theme of Spyglass Creative Excellence Section, the garment bagged first prize in the competition.
“It was a dream come true for us. It all started when my seniors in NIFT, Delhi used to participate in international fashion competitions. The seeds were sown from there. When I came to NID, Ahmedabad, to do my masters in apparel design, I got to know about this competition which is organised by Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI). We prepared the garment and sent it to FDCI who shortlisted the finalists and sent the garment forward to WOW,” Singh says.
Inspired from the concept of cubism and Picasso, the design took a month to get ready. “Our theme was Creative Excellence Section and there were three art movement under that category — cubism, expressionism and surrealism. We opted for cubism. The concept of cubism and Picasso has been my biggest inspiration so far. Cubism is about different perspective of any thing, situation or story. We prepared the design and I sent it to one of my friend Jitender Thakur, who has done his masters in BS, he helped me to better my design. It took us 15 days to understand how to prepare this garment,” Singh tells you.
For Vishnu Ramesh, who graduated from Kerala University in BTech in Information Technology and is pursuing Transportation and Automobile design in NID, the biggest challenge for was to finalise on the material to be used.
“Despite the fact that I am from transportation and automobile design background, I like to work with different departments. To work in apparel design was a new experience for me and I helped Pritam to manage the resources and how to utilise it well in this experimentation. We thought of using cardboard and form sheet initially but it would not have lasted long. So we used polyacrylic sheet and self-fabric. But the first two attempts were a failure. But we did manage to ensure that the garment was ready before the deadline in the third attempt. All this took us a month to finish it,” Vishnu Ramesh says adding that thought he couldn’t go to New Zealand, winning the WOW award with Pritam has been the biggest achievement in his life.
Pritam, who travelled to New Zealand to represent the design says that the competition was tough as so many renowned designers from different parts of the world were participating. “It was a tough competition with designers from England, Australia and New Zealand. last year, designers from China took the award in this category. To come to that level was an uphill task. But the best part was meeting designers and sharing each other’s perspective, their culture and what designing means to them,” Singh says.
The designer duo bagged 6,000 New Zealand dollars (around `2,85,865) and a trophy. Talking about what they have thought of about spending the prize money, Vishnu says: “We will be distributing in between us and save it to spent on other design competitions.”
There were a total 133 entries from across the world to compete for a prize pool of 40 awards with a combined value of NZ$165,000.
WOW was created by Dame Suzie Moncrieff, an international design competition that attracts entries from all over the world. The range of garments produced for each year’s competition is anything that is in any way wearable can find a place on stage, as long as it is original, beautifully designed and well-made. This also results in garments that are constructed from an extraordinary array of materials, pushing the boundaries of expectation.
For the 2016 show, 163 designers’ garments were showcased to an audience of 58,000 over a three-week season in Wellington. The winning garments from each year’s show are then seen up close by more than 40,000 people at the iconic WOW and Classic Car Museum in Nelson, New Zealand.