Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a fashion designer before he or she starts “creating?” Well, I have. So I’ve asked the winner of last year’s Circuit 9 ‘Move On’ for Best Collection, Silvia Garcia Presas, to enlighten us.

Silvia, back from completing a Masters Programme at the Royal College of Art in London, teaches design projects and dress-making at the Escola Superior de Disseny (ESDi), an associated centre with the Universitat Ramon Llull, graduated in 2000 from the Escuela de Artes y Tecnicas de la Moda (EATM) in Barcelona having previously collaborated with Marina Rinaldi, Josep Font, Swarovsky, United Arrows, and Max Mara in Italy. A true Catalan, she returned to Barcelona to settle down and begin her own firm, The Avant.

Let’s use as a starting point your winning collection, entitled “Flesh.” How did it all start? When you begin a new design, what comes first? Do you see a fully completed design in your eye’s mind? Do you see a fabric that you want to experiment with? Or might there be another design from a different age or culture that you want to modify?
It never works in the same order. I see a proportion, a silhouette of someone that I want to discover; she doesn’t exist and I want to make her real. Then I go through a stage where I think about details… what kinds of pieces I want to make up – big hips with big trousers, big flat colours with collapsing shoulders – and then I think about more details, the sizes of button holes, threads, and mixing of fabrics. This could be one way, the weight that I want to show and the movement of the pieces – light or stiff – is one way of doing it.

You want to make sure that your decisions mean something. Every decision you make has meaning and altogether it needs to be coherent. What you want to find at the end is “controlled chaos” because you are mixing everything -- silhouettes, colours, fabrics -- but in the right proportions. Each collection uses the same person but that person is constantly evolving. The person is always looking for her identity.

What happens next? Does your original vision begin to change as you implement it and as you experiment with shapes, materials, and volumes?
I think that the silhouette doesn’t change that much because you have a clear idea of what you see and what you want but the original idea is not that detailed. What I do change or consider changing are small things. You research each time. I start from zero each time and I research fabrics and the right details. And then I try to balance comfort with my beginning idea or goal, always keeping the silhouette in mind.

From the first design or initial idea do many others follow? Does a collection of many “looks” begin to form -- or could we say that it’s “design by design”?
You can see fifty pieces initially because the silhouette is the same but you have to go one by one and you want to do a mix of lengths of everything, for example, arms, legs, colours, trousers, etc. The proportion of the pieces is as important as any other decision for the collection.

What happens as the design becomes realized in fabric, not just on paper, and draped on mannequins and finally worn by models? Are further changes made and what might they be and why?
I’m not so sure if it’s important to forget your first idea but you do want to be completely sure that you’re telling the truth. If your first idea, for which may have high expectations, doesn’t take you anywhere – you have to start again. You can’t be inflexible. You need to adapt yourself to new ideas that might come from a rejection of an idea -- or a mistake. It’s crucial to be open-minded. If you’re not, you can get stuck at each challenge.

How do you go about putting all your designs together with styling and accessories for the runway show?
I dress someone who has something of this person I want to make real. I really like eyes, a gaze, someone who has low shoulders. Actually I like someone who’s not like the typical model. Ultimately when I do the casting, I ask for skin colour or a special height, maybe shorter than usual, and not necessarily pretty. Of course, in my personal way of looking at them, they are extremely pretty.

I don’t usually think about accessories because of what someone once said to me at the Royal College. I’ll never forget it. He said that accessories are something that you add to something that is needed, because the main thing doesn’t contain the whole meaning you intended. If the clothing looks like an accessory, that’s not good. It’s important to be critical of yourself and try to see where the accessories are “in” your clothes and make the decision to take them out. Accessories for me are not important in each collection. I only think about them if the “meaning” of the collection needs it.

What is your favourite part of the process?
The process itself is the best thing but when you discover things while working it’s like you’re finding answers and this is very satisfying.

I know that you wrote a poem that encompasses the feelings that you wanted to transmit to the public when they viewed your collection. Let’s publish this poem as a fitting end to this delightful interview.
Flesh
What is a word?
It is a piece full of imagination.
It is an image of flesh colour and dirtiness, and in some way, of yesterday.
It is a deformed image that again gives shape to the body.
It is an image of volume, which falls down from the shoulder and, collapses.
Urban folk, heritage tradition, smooth weight, of raw cotton, wide volumes, and proportions fighting for the right.
Flesh is the collection of a collector of forgotten memories. She wants to find a domestic language, where the individual makes subtle changes in their habits, with the aim of self-awareness and re-assertiveness.
The detail of the clothes; the result of spontaneous movements; are full of value and intention. The image of the collection wants to express the changes of rhythms in our day-to-day. Talk about the thoughts that come across to an individual, in the middle of the daily chaos, with the aim of finding: identities.
It is a collection based on the typical, the genuine.
The garments melt into the body. It is austere.
For all this, I call the collection "Flesh."

For more information:

Silvia Garcia Presas, The Avant
C/Zamora 95, 4º 1º
Barcelona 08018
93.300.76.73

Email: silvia@theavant.com