Building Fashion, an initiative that pairs emergent fashion designers with young architects, along with PIN-UP design magazine recently unveiled the
Siki Im/Leong Leong concept store, the final installation of five projects celebrating cutting edge design in New York City. The instillation is temporarily stationed next to the new High Line 23 (
HL23).
Leong Leong competed in a nationwide competition to collaborate with
Siki Im, the architect turned fashion designer. Siki's clothing is embedded beneath a layer of foam, 'reinforcing the dichotomy of two environments - public and private,
visible and invisible'. Like OMA's Prada store, this concept store challenges how we experience retail through architecture.
Siki Im was classically trained at the prestigious Oxford School of Architecture. Having worked as in architect in various cities around the world, he moved to NYC in 2001 where he worked for the progressive architecture firm, Architectonics. Numerous projects later he broke away from architecture to move into fashion, becoming the Senior Designer for Karl Lagerfeld and Helmut Lang. Now on his own men's line, he utilizes his experiences in architecture, furniture, graphics, art and music, manifesting it all into fabrics and shapes.
In a recent interview in The New York Times, Siki Im was asked..
Q. It seems like a lot of architects switch to fashion. Why is that?
A. Honestly, boredom. A building can take forever to go up - there are so many variables that can cause delays. Fashion is a lot more immediate and tactile and emotional. I actually had to learn how to be softer to do fashion, to really ask myself, "Does it feel right?" instead of just spell-checking the concept. And fashion people love architects. I think they think they're intellectual.
More on that interview here.
images: ArchDaily, NYTimes
