Oden Wilson

Oden Wilson, winner of the L'Oreal Professional Fashion Design Award for his Central St Martins A/W09 collection, showcased his version of couture fashion, but not in the established, theatrical, exaggerated mode. Instead, he created understated and perfectly chiselled shapes. His work reveals a strong design methodology, so it was unsurprising to find out that he has a passion for the physical processes of making, and for creating a meaningful aesthetic.

The garments are very well structured, like a 3D puzzle put together with mathematical precision – do you have to be good at maths to make those complicated patterns?
(Laughs) I enjoy maths but I’m not sure if I am that good at it! Before I started studying fashion, I had a brief career as a mechanical engineer. I had to use trigonometry to calculate the angles of cuts and chamfers – it was training that I never expected to serve me well again.

What’s your vision when designing?
I like things that look very artificial. I am drawn to odd shapes, smooth lines and changing the proportion of the body in a dynamic and streamlined way. I love creating interestingly cut and constructed clothes. I think I am very lucky to have found fashion! If I hadn’t, I would probably still be working in the same hands on way but as a carpenter or something. It’s the craft of fashion that I really love. It allows me to work in a direct way with the material, finding the physical limitations and pushing them. I try to produce a conventional garment in an unconventional way. A couple of other references are army surplus and couture: so it’s bold and directional, but has a surprisingly comfortable wearability and ease.

What was the concept for this particular collection? Why did you decide to use blue and champagne as the main colours at the end?
I only used three colours because I needed to keep the collection coherent, while trying to push proportion and shape. I decided very early on which fabrics were going to achieve the volumes I wanted, in an attempt to break away from that tight silhouetted collection that Christopher Kane made so famous at CSM. So the colours were key to the coherence… and I loved the blue and champagne combination! I thought it looked modern, clean and minimal. I developed a cutting concept inspired by origami to produce the huge geometrics, which I then gathered and collapsed around the body. The form of the shapes was controlled by a series of utilitarian drawstrings and hardware in the garments. That’s how I tried to make the couture context relevant and modern.

Credits:

Photography: Billy Ballard
Text and Styling: Nobuko Tannawa
All Clothes by Oden Wilson; Black tights by Wolford
Hair: Mari Ohashi using Kiehl’s
Make-up and manicure: Zoe Taylor using MAC
Re-touching: Regina Limon Vega
Model: Malene Knudsen @ Next
Photographic assistant: Rob Low
Make-up assistant Lauren Wall
Special Thanks to: Mark Loy Director of Spring Studios, Spring Lighting and Spring Digital

After assisting stylist Joanna Schlenzka for three years, Nobuko Tannawa is now a freelance fashion stylist. She grew up in Tokyo and New York

Billy Ballard grew up in the Midlands thinking he was going to be a scientist. He is currently living in East London, working as a freelance photographic assistant