2011-08-10

Tom Eloi Göbels

As a first designer: Tom Eloi Göbels
He took a long journey before he become a fashion designer. During this "going around" he explored different kind of field not related with art/design. He accumulated an unusual knowledge for a designer; those knowledge makes his point of view unique.


Personal data.
Tom Eloi Göbels is from Liège (600.000 people) in Belgium (10.000.000 people); currently he is living in Shanghai (23.000.000 people).
www.tomgobels.com

Can you, briefly, introduce yourself?
"I didn’t plan to be a designer.
I started scientific studies; I did a Master in Biology followed by a Master in Management Sciences. After, I study fashion design, as always wanted.
Before the reason came before the passion. Now, the passion comes before the reason, and allows me to live and to develop myself; this is great."

You have been living in Shanghai, China, for almost four years. How this city influenced your design?
"As westerner, I discover and adapt myself to life in China. Eating with chopstick rice or beef noodles, buying train ticket, bargaining in the antic market are challenges of the daily life."

Adaptation, but not just this.
The availability of raw material, the abundance of product or just the place where he live with a view on 30 floors four stars hotel and a three floors highway have an impact on his design perception. Walking in the streets is an eye opener on others aspects of life - is is motto.
"Is my design better or not? I don’t really know. I am just aware it is becoming more Chinese by using traditional fabric or material. Why? Because I am attracted by bright color. A lot of my garments are made with gold, red, yellow fabrics."

He usually work on capsule collection. In the last one, he mixed gold-sequenced fabric with traditional Chinese cotton. He was surprised to do a fitted glamorous collection, that is not his style. Chinese influence. For him the challenge to work with those kinds of materials was not to overdo. "Fabrics speak by themselves; few details are enough to complete the overlook."
He is inspired by weird, funny, unconventional element of daily life. What is strange is interesting. What he find weird, it is just normal for other people; this distance of point of view is his research playground.
But Chinese color and fabric are not the only material he's interest in; he works as well on PVC, bamboo or felt. They allow him to rethink about the concept of “covering the body”, the main meaning of clothes.
The design process, for him, is playing with lines, colors, shapes and textures. He mix these elements to have appealing stuff.

"As fashion designer, my main purpose is to cover the body. But developing a sketchbook, writing a text, taking pictures could be see as “design” when the results is new or combine unexpected elements."

No comments: