JOLKA WIENS

ёлка is the label of the Amsterdam based fashion designer Jolka Wiens, who was born and raised in Berlin. For her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie she moved to the Netherlands, where she graduated in july 2012 with the BA of design.
The 'mimi/kry' Collection was inspired by facial expressions. Like fashion, the visage contributes to nonverbal communication; it hides and reveals. Its expressions, often produced unconsciously, are difficult to control.
"I am mostly excited about the psychological and social aspects of design. The way people behave and communicate. What is so fascinating about facial expression is that there is this basic shape of the face yet even the slightest twitch completely changes its mimicry. Applying this study to my collection I choose to keep it abstract and focus on the system of muscles and skin. I made drawings of faces and abstracted them the way they do in computer animation. This in the end resulted in the laser cutting technique used on flat, T-shaped neoprene. The pieces are totally flat and literally need a body to bring them to live.” (Interview - Mo Veld)
I make use of the same basic shape and use laser cut to manipulate the patterns. In combination with movement, it changes the visual outcome in every look and is perceived in a different way.
Traditional techniques like knitting are used next to modern methods. Neoprene appears in white and light gold, combined with more fragile fabrics like skin coloured, translucent lycra and soft knitted pieces in white, combined grey shades,reaching until black. Enjoying a subdued colour palette, I play with textural and colour contrasts, using the the same colour in a different way to change the surface feel (haptic) and visual atmosphere. Through the use of laser cut, the white neoprene pieces conceive a graphical feeling.