PH5 DEBUTS COLLECTION – “ParrHasiu5’s Veil”

COLLECTION STATEMENT 

Trompe l’oeil is French for “to deceive the eye” but its earliest derivation comes from ancient Greece and an artistic showdown between Zeuxis and Parrhasius. In short, Zeuxis painted grapes with such skill that birds flew down to peck at them and in return Parrhasius painted an illusionistic curtain that fooled even the discerning eye of his fellow-painter, who tried to draw it to one side. In an effort to once again outshine his opponent, Zeuxis painted another painting with a young boy holding the grapes only to attract the same birds — only he took it as a defeat since if the boy truly looked real the birds should shy away… 

Resort began with a challenge of our own devise: after introducing our solution to extremely unsustainable denim with our “denim” jacquard pieces last season, we wanted to push this notion of ‘deception’ as a means to further innovate our knitwear. We considered the delivery of this collection and wanted to take our customer from day to night. Faux denim pieces play as elevated streetwear as well as evening pieces with a mix of trompe l’oeil sequins and real (recycled plastic) sequins. This allows both the wearer and admirer to question the perception of what is real and what is not, but also…does it really matter? A cheeky take on real and fake bows nod to Parrhasius’ drawn-back curtain and the same effect brings in the waist while mimicking both movement and volume in a stand-out cocktail dress.

So why toy with the veil of reality in our clothes? We often hear that the 2D nature of our graphic signature wavy dress resembles a paper doll dress when it’s on a hanger. In fact, we print to-scale dresses on paper to test and perfect engineered jacquards. Rather than straying too far from knitwear by adding unnecessary elements or embellishments to meet the demand for newness, we leaned into our highly-technical approach to knitwear to fashion looks that appear as simple as printed paper clothing. When testing fabrics our designer Zoe showed a photo of her trompe l’oeil sequins to her good friend and embellishment guru NIHL, who wondered how expensive the PH5 dress entirely embellished in sequins would be — the bird had been tricked. 

SUSTAINABILITY HITS & MISSES 

Hits

• This is our 10th collection where our materials are over 90% “responsibly” sourced.
• We continue to make sure our highest volume pieces are made from recycled materials maximizing our impact
• This season we offer up an alternative to denim and other woven styles, as a true one for one replacement that gives consumers options to find their wardrobe staples made more responsibly
• Using trompe l’oeil buttons and openings allows our pieces to last longer for consumers: if a button or zipper breaks it is often a reason for someone to throw away a perfectly good piece of clothing. It’s our hope that our stretchy garments will offer a longer-lived alternative without the worry of broken fixtures.

Misses

• This season we play with metallic yarns to offer true occasion wear, the nature of this yarn is that it a man made and we were unable to find recycled options, this is something we are committed to fixing before our next use
• Our responsibly sourced materials still include elastic & polyester which is non biodegradable and has the potential to shed micro-plastics, we have been unable to find alternatives on the market and continue to push our vendors and look for alternatives
• As a small brand with a very spread out market we are unable to close the loop on our products, the emissions caused by shipping garments around the world to reclaim & recycle would negate the effort, so we are looking for local solutions