The talent for vintage by Daniel Gregory Christmas

Since his debut project dating back to 2016, shortly after graduating from the Parsons School of Design, Daniel Gregory Natale has obtained esteem and commercial success thanks to his singular creative vision, so interesting to be included in the New York Times list of ten best promising young designers to watch out for. The talented Canadian is willing to keep up the hype around his work and now returns to the center of attention with a small but delicate collection dedicated to spring-summer 2019. This time inspiration comes from the world of interior design, in particular from the oriental culture and from the typical furnishing of the Japanese house, from details like an antique sofa decorated on a shiny concrete floor like dishes, linen and centerpieces. Christmas, fascinated by the relationship between modernism and traditionalism, combines in a continuous play of stratifications and juxtapositions shapes, sizes, colors, textures and different motifs.

On a practical level, all this translates into an interesting way to use and modernize classic and vintage fabrics, to manipulate them by using modern weaving techniques to create a collection that reflects traditional influences, but remains lean, devoid of the heaviness that is often associated with retro aesthetics. Thus, for example, the young designer pulls denim fibers along the warp to create a texture similar to a soft-touch fur, a sort of personal version of vintage fur coats or realizes rigid Victorian cuffs and high collars in a way so new that they seem like unpublished items. Innovative is also the way in which Christmas re-elaborates the delicate patterns and the bold colors of traditional crockery and porcelains inside crocheted circles that, connected together, form intricate and multidimensional tops. As Stephen King said "everything old is new again", so does the fashion of Daniel Gregory Christmas starts from the past, from what already exists to create something new, interesting, unique.