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Despite his young age, Mexican designer Nahúm Villasana has generated a clear vision and sense of style and crafted it into a label, Architectural Clothes. The name gives an idea of the concept behind the two collections, titled Mechanical Connection vol. 1 and 2. The garments have strong structures and clear attention to details, which translate into Nahúm’s vision of garments acting as a protective shell on the human body.
Tell us a bit about yourself
I'm 22 years old and based in Mexico. I studied Fashion Design and Pattern Making at Escuela de Diseño de Baja California. Immediately after that, I got a job teaching History of Costume in the same school. Now I’m working on my own as a freelance fashion designer, as well as continuing with my job at the design school.
What’s your design background
like?
I started sewing very young, making dresses and independent designs. On some occasions my friends asked me to make clothes for them, plus, all the experience that I got at the design school. After graduating, I designed three independent collections before launching the Architectural Clothes line.
Was there anything else that steered you into fashion design?
I got interested by reading magazines, and watching fashion shows on the TV. After that I started browsing for information on the topic. I started to learn about the real side, the creative process. The use and conduction of ideas and creative imagination for the practical order of design and experimentation. It has been more like a personal research, like a self-taught thing, but I must say certain stories and articles I read and saw, motivated me.
What is your design process like?
It varies by situation. Once I have an idea, I visualize it, I don’t do sketches. When I’m creating a garment, I go and buy fabrics and try to form the different shapes on them.
How does that work into collections?
It’s a challenge to define the first garment, but after that the first concept becomes a “norm”, and I depart from there continuing in that direction. I do a lot of research in the theme of the series, to establish the conceptualization, when I reach the 3rd of 4th design, the series itself starts taking form. I try to look for the silhouettes that focus on some parts of the body, and the way lines look, to make some parts of the body stand out.
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What about the manufacturing itself, is it a one man process?
Yes, I design, trace, cut and sew everything myself.
Your garments have very strong structures and unique constructions, what influences the style?
The body. I see the clothes as something done to protect it. Even though there are now a lot of clothes that speak for themselves, they were basically made for a body. I want to understand and interpret them. I have never taken a course on architecture, but I develop my line in the same basic principle. The clothes are referred as shelter and protection. I get emotions from some things, some ideas, I visualize some shapes, other times I see some objects and pay attention to their structure, their forms.
What about designers, are there any particular ones that have had an effect on you?
Yes there are some people that have motivated me, just by reading their biographies they’ve become a very important part for me. There are a lot that come to mind, but some I remember the best would be the late works, of Mariano Fortuny, Jean Muir, and Alix Grés, The conceptual works of so many like Hussein Chalayan, Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, Helmunt Lang, or Rudy Gernreich, just to mention some.
How is the fashion and design scene like in your home country?
Actually, I couldn’t really tell. I don’t live in the central part of México, where all the “action” is, if I can call it that way. But for what I’ve known, it is not that professional.
Has it been challenging to work as a designer from there, then?
All that I’ve done, I’ve done it by myself. So I try not to think about it. I'm focused on my work, if people in Mexico or in any other country like my work; I guess it’s not bad at all.
How do
you see your future?
I would like to sell more clothes to continue with my work, and
move to another place. I have many plans, and dreams. I will try to
achieve my goals, but I don’t get too obsessed with that.
view both
of the Architectural Clothes collections
here.
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