HOUSE OF MATCHING COLOURS

Paula Selby Avellaneda is both a graduate in fashion design from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and also in management from the Institut Français de la Mode, in Paris. Her collection asks a curious question. If, as is currently under trial in Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, we must artificially transform our rivers into icebergs as tall as skyscrapers, in order to cool our over polluted cities. Then, what would daily life look like if walls of ice replaced the Tuul river, the Seine, the Thames, or the Rio de la Plata? Let us see how a responsible designer might dress women as a result. In order to cope with the regular floods, Paula Selby Avellaneda employs plastics and materials that are easy to dry. She adds reflective strips to her clothes and offers luminescent lycra leggings in order to improve visibility amongst the waterlogged roads. Her latex skirt and perfecto-style jacket, with its woven acrylic buttons, do not mind the wet. Like a mischievous mermaid, her woman goes to work in a tailleur covered in scale-like sequins and rubber fins which assist her in sliding along. She wanders the streets clothed in a holographic dress which plays with the light. Lastly, on her way to a cocktail party, she dons a jacket – in lieu of a fur coat – which is made from strips of metallic paper that sparkle and rustle in the breeze. A pertinent and understated vision of a potential future.