Yousef Akbar is one of six fashion graduates selected to take part in The Innovators show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2014.
This is how he describes his major collection:
My inspiration came from a visit to the retrospective of Francis Bacon paintings at the Art Gallery of NSW.
I saw the paintings in the Bacon exhibition and I was just blown away and inspired by the sheer power of his imagery.
There were concepts of love, obsession, violence and the relationship between them.
By examining contradicting elements such as a soft and hard lines, contrast and harmony in colour, my aim is, like Bacon, to capture an image in motion.
The collection also uses acrylic rods, inspired by the lines in the distorted subjects of Bacon’spainting, as starting points.
I applied 3D draping of the fabric around the body, using bonded fabrics like lycra and silk that are also digitally printed.
There are roughly 20 pieces in the collection.
Putting it together was challenging. During my studies, most of the projects were based on one look.
But with a collection, your thinking must be different and go much deeper because you will have several looks to think about that should look as one collection.