2019

SAINA KOOHNAVARD “MADE YOU LOOK”

Saina Koohnavard’s “Made You Look” collection explores disturbances in pattern and colour and how these elements can deceive the eye. By playing with elements such as opacity, layers, and transparency, the nine outfits sought to explore the principles of Gestalt psychology to create disorder and confusion. 
The collection discusses our perception of pattern and colour and how, with small measures, these components can outsmart our senses, highlighting the importance of psychological (rather than scientific or mathematical) methods and techniques in design. 

“How we perceive our surroundings is something that has always interested me”, states Saina, continuing: “In design, there are so many aspects at play that affect how we categorise and make assumptions and decisions. Principles of Gestalt psychology are used in other design fields, such as interaction and industrial design. Still, it is not common enough that we speak of or use these elements in fashion. I started incorporating these elements, working with the plaid pattern, a pattern most people know, and using principles such as the law of figure-ground to play with layers. The law of figure-ground basically means that we have difficulty separating figure from background because it is not always clear which is which. I aimed to use this aspect, but with garments, playing with layers so that the differentiation between undergarment and outerwear would appear unclear. The overall process was just about trial and error. It was about going back and forth between printing and draping, testing contrasts and saturations, and having test audiences. I could have continued it for a longer period of time because there wasn’t really a way to stop. But in the end, this technique was used in multiple garment types such as dresses, coats and shirts.”

The designer Saina Koohnavard graduated with an MFA in Fashion Design from The Swedish School of Textiles in Spring 2015. Her collections have been presented at shows such as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Stockholm, London Fashion Week, Fashion Scout and Shanghai Fashion Week. Her works have been featured in magazines such as Vogue IT, MFF Magazine, and Beton, and displayed at the Stockholm-based art gallery Liljevalchs’ exhibition Utopian Bodies - Fashion Looks Forward, which highlighted the creativity and technology of fashion. She works in the Design Department at the Swedish School of Textiles, where she is the Director of Studies.