NIHL by Neil Grotzinger, Graduate Collection, SS14.
In his graduate collection for Spring-Summer 2014, artist and designer Neil Grotzinger created textiles that had an unconstrained and spontaneous quality with placement prints that appeared to be dripping with paint and beaded lines creeping across dresses like iron filings on a magnet.
The organic quality of the textiles and the scattered effect of the embellishments seem to be the direct result of Grotzinger’s focus on creating pieces that are specifically made to be unique. In fact, the more unique and inimitable the textile the better, as he sets out to create pieces that are almost more like individual pieces of wearable art.
Having “uniqueness” as a motivating factor allows the embellishment to be more complex and more spontaneous than it perhaps would have been had it been designed specifically for a ready-to-wear collection; essentially giving Grotzinger’s work a perspective more similar to a couture collection.
Aside from the textile treatments, the idea of the wearable artwork also seems to play into the shapes of the garments with screen printed or embellished areas occasionally “framed” with a plain white, black or grey surround. Some of the beaded embellishment also seems to hint at Grotzinger’s background in painting, although the medium of beading perhaps allows the colours and textures of a painting to become 3D and have movement with the wearer’s body in a way which painting alone could not quite achieve.
NIHL is the name of the label created by artist and designer Neil Grotzinger.
Images from NIHL by Neil Grotzinger»
Update 27 February 2020: The website link for NIHL has been updated, and shows work from Grotzinger’s more recent collections.
