AREA Presents Its New Resort ’23 Collection

For our Resort ’23 Collection we started diving into the rich world of resort inspirations. Looking back through history, we saw recurring nautical themes like, the mariniere stripes, shells and ropes that we tapped into to create this collection.

Mussel Flowers

A starting point for us this season were clams, specifically the mussel. This particular clam made me think back to growing up in southwest Holland, a region plentiful with mussel fishing. Through exploring the mussel, we found that it had a petal like appearance so we started laying it out into flower motifs. We developed these mussel flowers into handmade metal jewelry pieces & garments, as inserts and cut outs or as a seamen’s bucket hat. Next to exploring this motif through embroidery and hardware, we wanted to soften our approach by crafting the mussel shape into soft bustier bodices of evening gowns and padded embroidered sequin tops.

Mariners Rope

In our research we found reoccurring versions of rope, we translated the idea of rope intertwining into engineered patterning; seen in sleek jersey dresses and relaxed denim separates in  a bi wash treatment. For evening we recreated intertwining rope patterns by hand embroidering thousands of double faced sequins in opposite directions to create the depth of a rope. This can be seen in a rich gunmetal silver or fuchsia.

Seaweed

The idea of seaweed was translated through fine embroidery, combining sequin work with hand painting, hand cut metal leafs and fine encrusted crystals to mimic the elegance of seaweed dancing in water.

Piotrek Panszczyk

Photo credit

Collier Schorr, courtesy for AREA