Crafting silver linings

A DESIGNER’S intended inspirations don’t always come through in his or her collection, but it wouldn’t take much effort if you know what to find. In Estee Chan’s graduate collection, it’s a gory game of hide-and-seek involving slashed wounds, pierced skin, and blood bags.
“The Paradox of Pain” collection for spring/summer is sparked by Nieves Pascual’s essays of translating pain into art, as compiled in Witness to Pain, and fuelled by the works of performance (body) artists Stelarc and Kira O’Reilly. Namely, when a nude Stelarc was suspended on his back with 16 stainless steel hooks in 2012; and when O’Reilly inflicted her entire naked body with small, precise cuts in 2002.
Chan wanted to extol the beauty that presents itself in the midst of suffering, and the other-worldly peace that a sufferer experience when pain extends beyond the physical. To exemplify, she reinterpreted the aforementioned performances through fold-up edges (fastened by buttons) and scarlet pocket slits. Other details range from subtle – heart rate embroidery and “suffocation” finger pockets – to straightforward, like the detachable plaster panel on the bodice.
“Pain is not just a bodily experience. There’s no specific language to tell you the level or depth of pain – we can only visualise it from people’s expressions.
“When artists like Stelarc engage people, the burden is given to the spectator who witnesses such extreme body art. While he appears to be in pain, he is actually relaxed and relieved,” explained the 22-year-old.
Chan’s pre-graduation collection was no less morose, aptly entitled “Seclusion” as a tribute to her lonely and repressed childhood, having grown up in an overprotective household with no siblings. Like “The Paradox of Pain”, the autumn/winter collection is peppered with details, this time laced with nostalgia.
“The oversized sleeves symbolise the overprotective nature of my family, who kept me from going out and playing with the neighbourhood kids. Whereas the plait on the sleeve, and the hand-embroidered portrait of a girl with plaited hair, represent me. My grandmother used to braid my hair every day to keep it neat. I hated it because it wasn’t comfortable, but I didn’t dare to say anything,” Chan recalled.
Despite the melancholic backstories, the Ampang native intends for her designs to be the positive note that ends these real-life struggles, and the silver lining to look forward to.
“As an only child, I was depressed. People might not have known, but I want to convey that there is nothing to fear in being alone. Instead, we need to be determined and wait for our moment of freedom when we finally break through the loneliness,” she expressed.
The emerging designer, who recently returned from completing her studies in Raffles Hong Kong, is in the midst of establishing her namesake womenswear label, but has already determined and demonstrated a design aesthetic to call her own: overall minimalism materialising in simple silhouettes, with an emphasis on details and techniques.
“Many people say your designs portray your personality. I think of my designs as art pieces, but unique as they are, I’m also trying to design with wearability in mind,” Chan divulged, citing Raf Simons and Simon Porte Jacquemus as her inspirations.