SLOW FASHION

I have to make a confession: my clothes are a result of a long and difficult process of creation that sometimes doesn't keep up with the needs of the fashion system. OphLove is a kind of slow fashion where what you see is the outcome of a long elaboration and purification. It might seem too pure or sometimes too simple, or laking imagination. But as Coco Chanel would say, there are decorators and there are creators. If you are born a creator you might feel like you don't fit in this fast and crazy world of fashion business where there is a constant need of fancy, light minded and sparkling decorators who can pop up ideas like pop corn, so the consumer has plenty of choice, a constant supply of new goods that can tickle its desire for more and more and more.

I don't know if it happens to you, but I get the feeling there is sooo much clothes, so many that I get to refuse them all in a bulk. When I went to Topshop in Oxford Street in London last Christmass it gave me a terrible headache. I had to see all of them! But then I didn't buy any. I like the variety, I like to be left alone to search for my golden little stone, and I'm not a type who'd go in shi shi boutiques, I'm too shy. But the overwhelming variety just turns my had in a swirl and I feel sick. In Italy, you get an apparel shop every 50 meters. They are all empty with their shelves full. At present there are as much clothes to cover the entire Earth twice! (at least this is my feeling, I don't have any serious quotes handy to prove that)

Some of my friends and costumers say to me, Elena when I wear the things you make it feels special, it has a kind of buzzing energy in it, man, it gives me a weird and exciting feeling that's crazy... I believe in the magic of crafted items. The act of creating with hands and with care passes through the cloth much more energy than the economized fast industrial making. Most of the clothes, cheap or expensive are handmade. Don't think there are machines who can bake your jeans like cookies. Of course, you can make a pair of jeans in less then 5 minutes nowdays, but still there are hands behind it. And more, as it goes at present your jeans tend to be made as it used before (hours, my dear...), without super sonic machinery but with bare little Asian hands who worth in money less then European or American ones. I'm not talking about child labour, I just have this European impression that Asian population has small hands, but the things that can come out of those hands are amazing. These hands don't think. There is no time for that. There is no space for that. There is no money for that. You think, they do, so they can have their mind free for their own problems. Fair enough. That's why you can have your exhausting choice of bare appalling things without life in it. Like fast food. It's tasty but not genuine, it gives you the immediate satisfaction but it makes you crave for more in a fraction of time, it's simply not fulfilling. When you realize that, you turn on in search of that little shop you've seen in Berlin that doesn't exist anymore because of scarce affluence of costumers. They were all busy flying to H&M.

OphLove is made with hands who take the time to experiment and to make mistakes, it takes the time to fly and the time to drop on the ground in total despair. These are hands who think and deny the thoughts just because when you let them go without thinking things just come out more beautiful. Hands absorb your ideas and make them in fine shapes. The pieces I call OphLove are the product of this process where ideas melt with the matter. Sometimes, the matter doesn't want to get in a wanted shape. But other times, it folds perfectly in form that I couldn't even imagine.

It's love, babe, and I make it flow.