Zyanya Keizer: Structure and Fragility
Mexican born designer Zyanya Keizer creates garments that experiment with unconventional materials.
Born in Mexico City to a Mexican mother and a Dutch father, Keizer began her training at Central St Martins in London before further developing her craft in the iconic Belgian city of Antwerp. During her time in Antwerp, Keizer gained experience with couture designer Iris van Herpen.
The influence of van Herpen’s progressive design techniques is clear in the way that Keizer approaches her own work with materials. Keizer experiments with unconventional silhouettes to explore the organic shapes of the human body, with heavily embellished garments and intricate finishing. Her pieces blend the line between art and fashion, with each collection an expression of fantasy and ethereal beauty.
Shown this month at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Amsterdam, Keizer’s SS15 collection looked to human’s innate fears within the realms of everyday. Fear of the dark, fear for what is lingering under the bed and nightmares where one cannot wake up, all acted as inspiration for her garments. One particularly source of inspiration was the 1781 painting The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli. The infamous painting has birthed discussions about nightmares and has sparked many theories about the meaning of dreams.
The collection suggests the darkness and fragility of nightmares with a dark palette and anatomically sculptural pieces realised in leather. There is also a recurrent play with beads, a signature of Keizer’s work that further adds to the experimentation with texture.
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