OREN COHEN

I was born and raised in a Kibbutz - a socialist agricultural worker community - in Israel. My experience growing up in this community, isolated from popular culture and fashion trends, deeply influenced my design aesthetic in the way I perceive fashion and its place in the world.

The lack of exposure to popular fashion as a child, formed my opinion that a garment should be functional in its endurance and utility while providing the wearer with a sense of confidence and comfort rather than as a tool in the search of glamour or extravagance.

I’m drawn to silent yet striking silhouettes, quality materials and muted tones that allow the details and shape of the garment to speak for themselves. There is a sense of modesty in my design process that is highly influenced by the way I was brought up and the socialist nature of the Kibbutz. Although my research mostly concentrated on menswear, my designs are not gender-specific. Throughout my design process I drew my designs and fitted them on both genders, to try and achieve a balance and equality between masculine and feminine elements.

I decided to draw upon the information I gathered from my academic research in my design practice as a form of visual and technical research. My collection is based on the idea of the worker shirt as a symbol as well as a utilitarian tool. I examined the concept of the worker shirt being perceived as a sacred, religious garment based on theories from the early years of the Kibbutz, which describe manual labour in nature as a form of religious work.

While designing and making the collection I decided to break down the traditional design of the worker shirt; examine new proportions and work with some of the utilitarian aspects of the garment such as patch-pockets, re-introducing them in a different way.

The theme of religion and the secrecy of the garment, influenced my colour choices which concluded in various tones of black and white. The concept of nature and working the natural elements in agriculture led me to use only natural fibres such as cotton and linen - imitating the traditional materials that were used in the manufacturing of the worker shirt.

I decided to use written text in Hebrew as a screen print on top of various garments, highlighting the immersion of the worker shirt with political and ideological values through the labour of a manually hand-made print.

In my photographic visual research, I investigated abandoned greenhouses in Israel, which provoke the theme of transparency and layering as a feature in the collection, as well as some of my manual print development, through using the different textures of the greenhouses mesh.
These photographs also inspired some of the more oversized shaped and silhouettes in the collection that contributed to the gender ambiguity of the garments.

My collection is a representation of different themes driven from Israel and my childhood, and in line with the nature of the research it is aimed to be a spring-summer collection. This collection is a modern yet timeless answer to utilitarian-wear, featuring garments that can be worn by both genders and different ages. This capsule collection can be worn in many different variations and combinations and is a very pure representation of my design ethos.