I really feel like up-and-coming designers aren’t given enough love, so when I happened upon Elena Saraceni at the Red Vatican press launch I knew I had to dedicate a post to her work. Elena’s designs called out to me personally as I loved the intricacy that had gone into her pieces. Not only are her designs painstakingly hand-embroided but they call out to the woman who prefers something with a bit more attitude. The woman who grew up being called a ‘tomboy’ when really she just felt sexier in an oversized leather vest. Biker jackets, skirts with skulls on, studs and one effortlessly chic clutch bag. Need I say more?
I contacted her and asked if she wouldn’t mind telling me a bit about herself and her designs.
DESIGNER NAME: Elena Saraceni
ORIGIN: Born in Argentina, raised in Venezuela with Italian, French, Argentinian and Venezuelan heritage.
DESIGN BACKGROUND: Graduated from Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion and Instituto Brivil. Holds a BA, Graduate Diploma and an Masters in Fashion design. She has worked between Paris, London and Caracas with Oscar Carvallo, Consuelo Zoelly, Maria Grachvogel, Alexander McQueen and her own brand and projects.
DESIGN SIGNATURES: It would be more a language than a stamp. Balance between contradictory elements, making sense out of a paradox.
BRAND PHILOSOPHY: Find potential in the ordinary, find beauty in the unexpected.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Music, art, travel, everything. And there’s also cinema, a movie has art, photography, style, philosophy, attitude, music and video all in one.
LATEST COLLECTION: The Amish Outlaw Collection ’14
“An Amish girl gets shunned by her family after she falls in love with a biker that was passing by and runs away with him. Now, she’s trying to figure out how to belong to her new family without letting go of her religious beliefs.”
Inspired by Amish country and outlaw motorcycle clubs, the collection features hand-embroidered themes taken from the artisanal Amish quilts and Biker visual identification and adornment, to create quilting for textured leather and workwear cotton. Mixing textured and flat fabrics, handwork and machine work, leather and quilting and melting them with a concept that joins antagonistic elements together. The magic happened in the in-between as always. Making sense out of the senseless. Looking for similarities in apparently different ideas. Making sense out of a paradox through the alchemy of concepts diluting them in a bricolage of styles and materials.
Browse and shop The Amish Outlaw Collection at Elena Saraceni, and in-store at Red Vatican.
