Rotem Izhaki

Student / Fashion Category

"In my design I wanted to emphasize the contrast and transition of life and death, flow and stillness, using dark and vivid colors of flowers."

— Rotem Izhaki
Mentor – Nelly Agassi

Pre-Raphaelites painter Millais Inspired me in this project with his painting ‘Ophelia’. Based on Shakespeare’s drama “Hamlet”, Ophelia ends up in a state of madness that leads to her death by falling into a river while picking flowers and slowly drowning.
I linked it to Azuma Makoto’s works. The ‘Gaibu-Outside’ exhibition includes a cut-flower garden, appears as an open field. The piece is a form of reverse agriculture, as the flowers are planted ‘to die’.

The work studies blooming versus decomposition and death of flowers. His ‘Iced flowers’ exhibition displays a vivid contrast of flowers changing shapes, placed inside melting ice cubes.
In my design I wanted to emphasize the contrast and transition of life and death, flow and stillness, using dark and vivid colors of flowers. I printed the fabrics especially for the project. The top is made of smocking embroidery. The front is an interpretation of a river with floating flowers.

I embroidered ‘flowers’ using beads and French knots inside the smocking slits. The sleeves change their form due to stretch, creating a ‘Shakespearean’ style, my ‘embroidered-knit’. The collar is embroidered with beads and the open back comes from Ophelia’s floating clothes that go up while she drowns.

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Rotem Izhaki
Rotem Izhaki - image from the official 2020 Prize shoot
Rotem Izhaki - supporting image
Rotem Izhaki - supporting image
Rotem Izhaki
Rotem Izhaki - image from the official 2020 Prize shoot
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