Bashar Assaf is a contemporary Ready-To-Wear brand launched in 2012. The brand aims to accentuate the female body all the while keeping an air of mystery through sophisticated yet demure silhouettes, solid colors and clean cuts.
Skin Deep focuses on what makes up the human body’s external covering; the skin. It reinterprets its various forms, shapes and lines into garments. The collection is an appreciation of the bodily marks that form our individual narratives.
The cuts, shapes, stitches and volumes trace the female anatomy in order to highlight the transformation of the body’s marks and wrinkles with the passage of time, using subtle prints and materials.
This collection does not claim to be ethereal but attempts to capture all that is. Ethereal is a collection inspired by all that is ‘too perfect for this world’. This feeling is captured through prints of rock formations and plastic wrap on cotton and silk, flowing floor length skirts in magic mint and bra tops in air superiority blue, wrap dresses in crepe or wide leg pants in sheer georgette. Men in straight silhouettes, women too.
Climax was the solo debut collection following the residency at Beirut’s Starch Foundation. It is inspired by apex and peaks, and is visually manifested through different stages of climax. Crepe, Jacquard, felt, wool, different silks and cottons were used in the making of this collection. Four visual prints were developed, each portraying a separate stage of climax. Burgundy, forest green and navy blue are some of the main colors used.
Hallucinating is seeing something in front of you that is not actually there, somehow like watching television. Television static, noise and glitches are used to represent the state of mind of someone in the process of hallucinating. This forms the bases for the SS14 Bashar Assaf collection. The prints distort the volumes of the garments, while the cuts and layers seem to play mind tricks with the viewer.
The heart is the human body’s nucleus. It renews and nourishes our physical existence. However, this very organ is also subject to shock, tragedy, and ailment. From these charged concepts, the core of Bashar Assaf’s S/S 2013 collection was developed. The colors, volumes and shapes utilized throughout the collection were a result of thorough investigation of the heart’s anatomy. The choices of fabrics, and the textures they produced when mixed, were also influenced by heart tissue muscles. Furthermore, the element that is most recurrent is the intricate pattern which was developed by taking sections of different parts of the heart and combining them to form a visual that is at once intriguing due to its surgical reference and contemporary in the way it wraps around the garments. The same way a heart goes through various stages in life, Assaf’s collection is a journey that is at moments smooth and sombre while at others complex and unsettling.