If your image of a fashion show is that of stick-thin women with taut ponytails
cheekily marching down the aisle in ever-so-high stilettos, then the Kedem
Sasson runway presentation at Gindi Fashion Week would have come as a huge
surprise. Though the models were on the frail side, their presence on the
long, luxurious, lustrous path in Tel Aviv was far from cliché.
The 2013
summer collection is called Journey, an appropriate name considering the
otherworldly nature of the clothing and the developing color palette from start
to finish. From the moment the lights went up, the Kedem Sasson show felt
distinctly different from other fashion shows, be it Paris, Milan, New York or
inside the Gindi tent in central Tel Aviv. The models gathered in dim lighting
at the beginning of the stage, creating the sense of a tribe, a notion Sasson
associates with his body of loyal customers.
With softly assembled
hairdos and square-cut flip-flops, the girls looked unassuming and at ease as
they carried the newest of Sasson’s visions from fantasy to reality. Their
jaunts down the long catwalk varied in speed, from confident strides to slow,
plodding progressions.
For Sasson, the opportunity to show during Gindi
Fashion Week was a golden moment.
“Gindi Fashion Week was an event the
likes of which we had never seen in Israel before. It was so well produced and
so respectful of the designers. I think all of us designers really felt
important. The event was about art and not about the commercial element,” he
said.
For Sasson, the chance to take the slide show of his imagination
from the cutting board to full realization on this stage was a dream come true.
“The essence of fashion is creation and free language,” he said. “Here, there
were no boundaries or limitations.”
Sasson, dressed in a wool turtleneck
sweater and jeans, sipped a cup of tea in one of several armchairs in his office
in south Tel Aviv. The space, which Sasson took up two years ago, is a studio
and a factory and is filled with small statues, bolts of highly textured fabrics
and racks upon racks of clothing. Inside his office there is a large board on
the wall, covered with tiny sketches of garments. It is here that Sasson began
his journey toward the big day of his show.
Unlike many of his peers,
Sasson rarely presents runway extravaganzas of this nature, keeping his
attention on his flock of shops and customers. Therefore, Fashion Week
presented him with a unique opportunity to paint a full picture, one that would
be shown as a whole rather than in parts.
“I make large pictures,” he
said. “I don’t care much about details. I need to see, from head to toe, the
flow of each image.”
Sasson has a great deal of experience creating
clothing for the stage, mainly for contemporary dance. His inside knowledge of
movement helped him to evoke a timeless, larger- than-life sense of space and
time during Fashion Week.
“Like a seasoned actor who knows when the
audience will respond to him, I knew which pieces would get applause. I wanted
each piece to leave a trail in its wake once it left the stage,” he
said.
With the event behind him, Sasson’s task now is to make sure that
all the looks seen in Fashion Week are readily available in his stores. And
while sales are certainly on his mind, the afterglow of the runway show will
undoubtedly brighten his daily routine.
“My first priority is to create
beautiful clothes. When you are caught up in sales, it’s easy to lose that.
Fashion Week gave me a chance to expose myself in a new way,” he said.
For
more information about Kedem Sasson, visit www.kedem-sasson.com
Most Viewed in