{"id":64784,"date":"2018-05-02T12:44:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T10:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=64784"},"modified":"2018-05-02T12:44:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T10:44:40","slug":"ximon-lee-pan-daijing-turned-fashion-performance-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/ximon-lee-pan-daijing-turned-fashion-performance-art\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ximon Lee & Pan Daijing Turned Fashion Into Performance Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span>\u201cIt all starts with a feeling, an emotion, a thought or a colour,\u201d says Berlin-based designer Ximon Lee, of the process behind his high concept collections. In the four years since his inaugural offering, Lee \u2014 raised in China and trained in New York \u2014 has established himself as a beacon of hope in the industry. 2015 was an explosive year for Lee. Just one year after graduating from Parsons, he won the prestigious H&M Design Award, was nominated a semi-finalist for the LVMH prize, and was even awarded a seal of approval from millennial philosopher Kanye West (who declared that Lee was \u201ckilling it\u201d). Lee has responded to considerable hype with an unwavering commitment to the avant-garde. Each of Lee\u2019s seasons is, in his words, an exploration or a \u201cstudy\u201d of an initial emotion, which he expands into something tangible; treating textiles like a scrabble board, he weaves together different colours and materials to convey his broader message. The resulting pieces are manifestations of a self-devised narrative. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s not about garment making. It\u2019s about storytelling,\u201d he says. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\nProcess and concept are crucial to Lee’s practice \u2014 and his AW18 collection proved no exception to the rule. \u201cThis season, the theme was melancholic violence,\u201d the designer explains. \u201cI wanted to show a series of work that represented things which are contradictory in nature but which coexist nevertheless.\u201d Lee is no stranger to heavier topics. Each of his seasonal offerings, which he terms \u201cstudies\u201d, builds the basis for his next conceptual rumination. In the past 3 seasons, he has moved from \u201cShame\u201d to \u201cXenophilia\u201d to \u201cMelancholic Violence\u201d, each an elegant embodiment of the darker and more complex aspects of human nature. \u201cMelancholic Violence\u201d is his most avant-garde study to date in both form and exhibition. Lee used \u201cMelancholic Violence\u201d as an opportunity to move his designs further away from the fashion world, which is as dependent on commerce and mass appeal as it is on creativity and innovation. \u201cI\u2019m curious about other methods of presentation\u201d, says Lee. \u201cI think perhaps the message is more powerful when taken outside of a fashion context.\u201d \u00a0<\/span>
\nThis season, Lee worked with Chinese sound artist Pan Daijing to explore performance as a means of collection presentation, fearlessly stepping outside of the accepted borders of what fashion can and should be. Daijing, known for her site-specific compositions and performances, proved a sensible match for Lee\u2019s daring intentions. Both are Berlin-based creatives of Asian heritage who approach their mediums from an equally lofty frame of mind, and with a unified initiative to break boundaries.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nLee and Daijing exhibited a preview show, titled \u201cMelancholic Violence\u201d, during\u00a0the most recent Paris Fashion Week. Models dressed in key silhouettes did a small-scale performance in a luxurious flat. \u201cThe space was really elegant but the presentation itself was quite dark,\u201d says Lee. Daijing created a score for the space and choreographed the models, who walked the runway slowly, performing actions like blindfolding one another or whispering. This served as a kind of warm up for a bigger production in Shanghai at the end of March, entitled \u201cMaster of Mess\u201d.<\/span>
\nLee showed this latest work in a suitably storied space: an ex-biological institute from the 1930s, complete with a swimming pool previously used for naval training. Lee and his team constructed a stage over the pool and filled it with sand, so that it resembled an island floating on water, while attendees perched alongside its slightly elevated rim. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\nFor models, Lee and Daijng turned to the streets of Shanghai, casting a selection of the city\u2019s teens, who in spite of their notorious partying habits proved impressively professional and dedicated to their task. Daijing and Lee had only two days to train them for the performance, which was set to a unique piece piece of sound art involving opera and spoken word. Daijing\u2019s choreography, designed to simulate different emotions, invoked actions like repeated self-punching and intimate group work. \u201cThere was\u00a0an orgy scene,\u201d Lee expands. \u201cIn the beginning the models were quite resistant to the idea and giggling a lot, but during the performance they were really into it! They twisted together, like snakes in love.\u201d <\/span>
\nThe garments were made from Lee\u2019s custom textiles, which he based on a series of his own paintings that resemble dried, bloody fingerprints and other haunting imagery. Lee and his team digitised the paintings and coded particular hues with different kinds of wool and yarn. They then weaved and steamed the material to create a three-dimensional texture with wildly organic qualities. \u201cWe juxtaposed bloody reds with softer, pastel colours to represent violence and melancholia. The resulting fabric was this like this sad, collapsing structure. Almost like a corpse,\u201d he says. The fashion abstractions were presented like sculptures or creatures \u2014 some resembled animal carcasses, others sea corals \u2014 with the human bodies beneath them serving both as supports and animators.<\/span>
\n\"\"\u201cMaster of Mess\u201d can be interpreted as a resistant effort against the often empty-headed, normalised methods of exhibition in the fashion world. Lee\u2019s production forces us to consider why the runway and showroom are the status quo, and just how limiting those forms of presentation are to designers. By incorporating performance, Lee believes that the communication between audience and artist is optimised, enabling highly conceptual narratives (like his) to better translate. \u201cIf you only look at a static model or a quick walk, how much can you really digest?\u201d he asks. And there’s no denying that Lee\u2019s shows hold his audience spellbound: just one glance away could mean missing a crucial element of the story. AW18 was an opportunity for Lee to carve out a space for critical thinking in a notoriously superficial sector of the creative world.<\/span>
\nLee belongs to the ranks of a kind of fashion intelligentsia that cherishes idealisation and craft over trend:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI\u2019m most fulfilled when I\u2019m creating pieces which are most honest to my feelings, not when I\u2019m making things that other people want to see or buy\u201d. Spontaneity and flexibility are two things Lee holds dear to his practice: abiding strictly by the fashion industry\u2019s gruelling deadlines, quotas and narrow markets would mean imposing limitations on his ever-evolving studies and explorations. His decision to show off the exhaustive fashion schedule is another bold move, one which he recognises means forgoing press and buyers. But those privy to his efforts, or fortunate enough to experience them in real life, know that this way, his contribution to the fashion world is more significant. This unprecedented fashion \u201chappening\u201d proves that Lee is, if anything, unafraid. He\u2019s unafraid of the monstrous, the serious, the conceptual and the imperceptible. He is bravely forging his own way and demanding more out of fashion than just surface level beauty and market appeasement \u2014 and for that, we should all be grateful.<\/span>
\n\"\"<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens when groundbreaking design meets subversive sound art? A high concept show in a Shanghai swimming pool, apparently.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,81,139],"tags":[4098,9863,1045,2171],"class_list":["post-64784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-fashion","category-art","tag-lvmh","tag-pan-daijing","tag-performance","tag-ximon-lee"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nHow Ximon Lee & Pan Daijing Turned Fashion Into Performance Art How Ximon Lee & Pan Daijing Turned Fashion Into Performance Art<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/ximon-lee-pan-daijing-turned-fashion-performance-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Ximon Lee & Pan Daijing Turned Fashion Into Performance Art How Ximon Lee & Pan Daijing Turned Fashion Into Performance Art\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What happens when groundbreaking design meets subversive sound art? 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