 Tuesday 16th September 2008
On|Off Presents... is a catwalk show that showcases the cream of On|Off’s exhibition designers during one unique catwalk.
Launched in September 2007, On|Off Presents… has successfully showcased niche designers such as Steph Aman, Rizvi Millenery, Richard Sorger, Yuchi, Delphine Wilson, creating sales, profile and exposure for the designers profiled.
On|Off Presents… is designed to support designers that are niche and that create unique pieces, that would benefit from showcasing on the catwalk.
The designers, which are selected from On|Off’s industry panel (Caryn Franklin, Zowie Bradley, Paula Reed, Claire Ginzler and Lee Lapthorne) are the ones to watch, to buy and to profile. Sponsored by Oli.co.uk, On|Off Presents… supports those designers that are ready to sell, having robust production in place and therefore a sound investment for international buyers.
This season On|Off Presents… is pleased to showcase; Alexander Koutny, Mark Fast and Rozalb De Mura
Alexander Koutny
After studying patternmaking, Koutny launched a ready-to-wear line of simple, mostly black menswear, later adding womenswear. Koutny moved to London where he was inspired by the cutting-edge fashion design around him. He has produced intricate and often elaborate one-off pieces. In September 07, Koutny attended the South African Fashion Week as the headline designer where he held a guest workshop. Now based in New York, Koutny has released his second collection Temporal Folds, a fitting continuation from Graphica Immateria.
Graphica Immateria is a small focused collection of darkly organic pieces. It is inspired by power lines and their supportive pylons, the structures that support these rudimentary mechanical devices that connect human beings, generating expectations for future possibilities. Foreboding yet somehow comforting, they repeat and remind us of where we may go and how that hardly differs from where we may have been.
While exploring a structural volumous silhouette, Koutny has introduced contradictions in textured figure clinging pieces as well as structured oppositional pleated elements that serve as intrusive yet seductively willful forms. Temporal Folds is an expression of Koutny’s observations and musings of our increasingly relativistic relationship to time.
Koutny is now poised to take his brand to the European market with a return to London with the opportunity to present at On|Off, and representation in Agentur V Showroom in Paris for the 08/09 Spring Summer Season.
www.alexanderkoutny.com
Mark Fast
 Mark Fast is 27 years old, Canadian born knitwear designer, from the city of Winnipeg. He grew up in the countryside along a highway next to a forest. This minimal peaceful aesthetic forced him to imagine more, what it would be like, beyond the barricade of Canada. Finding London freed his creativity at last.
He has been studying at Central St. Martins for the last 5 years. He did his BA there and currently finished his MA this last February. Over the years he has created knitwear for Bora Aksu for 3 seasons and worked with Alber Elbaz, 1 season.
He loves to knit everything by hand on a domestic machine that he has at his studio. He is inspired by the endless possibilities of lycra yarns and how they can create areas of tension but also areas of volume over the body by mixing in viscoses, angoras or wools . Mark also loves how old pieces of historical costume and objects can be translated into a contemporary aesthetic. His work is formed onto the body as he knits, so it is body-conscious, but this time he’s created new ways to sculpt different volumes over the body by using different yarns and stitch techniques. He’s always fond of body-conscious knitwear but he is moving into different shapes and volumes at the moment, which is also very exciting. He believes that in fashion these days there is a growing attention to craftsmanship, as opposed to quick-fix disposable fashion. He is focussing on timeless classics.
www.markfast.net
Rozalb de Mura
 Rozalb de Mura is an up-market fashion label created in Romania. Launched at the beginning of 2006, it has already drawn professionals and avant-garde fashionistas from Romania and abroad.
Moreover, Rozalb de Mura label is developing as a multidisciplinary platform that commissions and supports unexpected collaborations between fashion designers, visual artists, musicians and writers, such as Tobias Stenberg, Olivia Plender, Constantin Luser, Liste Noire group, etc.
In Olah Gyarfas’s world, Hungarian deliciously mingles with Romanian words, reality with fiction, masculine with feminine, minimalism with a passion for details and tan sessions with an icy walk to St. Ana Lake.
A scholarship at University of Applied Arts in Budapest, “Designmai” Festival in Berlin, Romanian Fashion Week and Iast Fashion Week and here he is, tall, a slender, nonchalantly urban silhouette, an exotic presence in any metropolis in the world, all the more in the quiet Transylvanian town of Miercurea Ciuc. Here, in the chocolate-brown studio, the severe snap of the sewing machines mark the preparation of the collections signed by Olah Gyarfas for Rozalb de Mura.
In the summer of 2006, Unit F büro für mode (Vienna), the Austrian organization that promoted young avant-garde designers like Petar Petrov and Wendy & Jim awarded him the Kontakt Erste Bank Award for the most creative Eastern European fashion designer. 2007 brought the first important business meetings with the international market, and the positive echoes following Stockholm and Paris fashion fairs enflamed the designer’s creativity.
Rozalb de Mura STORE
9 – 11, Selari str (Lipscani area), Curtea Sticlarilor, 1st floor, sector 3, Bucharest
00 4 021 311 62 15 / 00 4 0723 172 850
www.rozalbdemura.ro
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