LONDON, Aug 5, 2012/ — The ‘Shiva Skull Bag’, a completely functional military bag constructed in the shape of a human skull, was launched last June 30th to a few key influential retailers globally and it is the first of Aitor Throup’s archetypal products to be revealed.
The product has been developed and refined for the past six years and is the first of the 22 archetypes which will be revealed at the full launch of ‘New Object Research’ in January 2013.
At the presentation during London Collections: Men this June, Argentinean artist Aitor Throup expressed his on-going dislike of forced seasonal thematic creativity induced by the industry’s relentless six month cycle, and explained his proposed solution.
Unlike designers working within the traditional structure, Throup has been working on concepts outside of the fashion industry’s timelines, sometimes taking two or three years developing a new idea. These concepts express personal interests through the various narratives, rather than as responses to seasonal trends.
Throup often prefers to evolve and refine existing ideas rather than develop new ones in order for the resulting products to be as innovative and unique as the concepts and processes that inform them.
Through this intense distillation process of product design, Throup is creating his own brand’s ‘archetypes’ which will become the designer’s product offering on a seasonal basis.
Archetypes can evolve seasonally, and new archetypes can be developed from existing concepts. Importantly however, having a seasonal business model which relies on existing archetypes, he designer can allow himself more creative freedom and time for new ideas to surface more naturally.
Photo by Neil Bedford
