London-based designer – Ada Zanditon has been a Launderette favourite since the very beginning of the blog. We apologise for writing about Ada ad nauseum, but her label is just so very awe-inspiring!
Ada pioneers in creating and evolving luxury fashion with a common sense approach to sustainability, a commitment to transparency and a belief in business that treats people, planet and profit with equal importance.
Having worked previously for Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh and Jonathan Saunders, Ada is first and foremost an incredible designer. Her garments are sculptural, edgy and highly conceptual. She has quickly established herself as one of fashion’s fastest rising creative stars having been featured in likes of Vogue, Drapers, Glamour, Another, Dazed & Confused, Nylon and Random magazines.
Launderette sat down to talk to Ada about her design process, sustainability and all the exciting things we can expect from her in 2011 – Thanks Ada, we love you!
Ada Zanditon from AW10
Launderette: First and foremost, you are a really talented and conceptual designer. We especially love your ability to play with sculpture, volume and pattern in both your garments and in your illustrations. What are your most influential design inspirations whether it’s people, places or things?
Ada Zanditon: I love Anish Kapoor’s ability to create art and sculpture that appeals to the masses. Through his clever use of proportion and colours ideas – be it chaotic or simple- he manages to transcend a universal language, making his work easy to understand. The Architectural Association also inspire me with their temporary architecture, fluid in form and nature-mimicking work often installed in public spaces is not only visually stunning but sustainable too. An animal species has formed the inspiration for every season thus far-bats bees and coral to name a few. Janine Benyus’ idea that human beings should consciously emulate nature’s genius in their designs to make sustainable is a huge inspiration to me and is at the core of the Ada Zanditon brand. I also use the theories of recursive algorithms and iterated function systems in my design and print work- using smaller identical units to build up into a larger object that no longer resembles the original unit- again something which emulates nature’s efficiency and functional systems that have been tried and tested through the process of evolution.
Ada Zanditon SS11 Collection Fashion Illustration
Launderette: We are in love with the fact that the SS11 collection is inspired by Egyptian pyramids, coral reefs and how mathematics meets the spirit of the environment. Can you give us a tiny hint about what the fashion world can expect from you for AW11?
Ada: Sorry its top secret! Needless to say though nature plays a large part.
Ada Zanditon SS11
Launderette: You are probably best known for your amazing dresses and sculptural jackets, but you also do jewellery. Tell us a bit more about your collaboration with Luca Romanyi.
Ada: We first met a LFW in Feb ’09 and its been a match made in heaven ever since! We both have a very similar design aesthetic and will be collaborating again next season. The first season ss10 when we collaborated we created pieces using recycled plastic with shredded end of line bank notes trapped inside. For AW10 we used recycled eco resin with layers of compressed nano fibers and for SS11 we tessellated triangle shapes embellished with my print , made from porcelain tiles. Johnson Tiles and Material Lab kindly understood and loved our idea and supported us by creating the tile, transferring my print onto it and cutting it into beautiful efficient triangles for us from squares… zero waste! We teamed the tile up with veg tan leather and Swarovski crystals.
Ada Zanditon w/ Luca Romanyi SS11
Launderette: Let’s be honest, ecological labels like ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘eco’ are often not much more than a catchy buzz-word used by clever marketing and PR people. As the momentum grows for the ‘ethical’ fashion movement, the terms themselves tend to lose their meaning. What does being ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ mean to you in your business practices and for the wider fashion industry?
Ada: I am trying to create and evolve my brand into a high-end womenswear business with a common sense approach to sustainability, at the same time transforming the eco-fashion movement’s image into something sexy, contemporary whilst creating styles ranging from classic to avant-garde using minimum wastage patterns. The aim is to be a business that treats people, the planet and profit with equal importance.
Launderette: In efforts to debunk the terminology, what kind of challenges do you face in communicating your mission for ‘ethical’ fashion, and how do you deal with these challenges?
Ada: People tend to associate ethical fashion with a certain image -placing it in a very narrow minded box- and it’s this that I’m trying to break away from, trying to change the public’s perception that a brand can have an amazing aesthetic and be sustainable at the same time, as opposed to the other way round. However, in the long run all fashion ought to become more sustainably made.
Launderette: What are some of your biggest sourcing challenges, and how are you striving to improve your process with each collection?
Ada: I am always interested in sourcing innovative sustainable materials as they are created and emerge onto the market, however it is often near impossible to order theses in small quantities, which is essential to me as a small new brand. There is a lot available on the market but it often takes prolonged periods of time to obtain them and it is too often time that is not on my side as a young designer.
Launderette: And finally, If you lived in a dream world, who would you love to design for – alive or dead, famous or not?
Ada: My dream is to write an opera, starring Bowie, Viktoria Modesta and Grace Jones. Naturally I would make all the costumes and we would embark on a world tour! It could be some kind of operatic version of Labyrinth!
Oh my days, we would definitely go see that opera! I cannot even imagine how epic the costuming would be, but we reckon this is a good place to start day-dreaming – Viktoria Modesta wearing an Ada Zanditon creation:
Viktoria Modesta in Ada Zanditon
