seashells for spring

“The concept that corresponds to a shell is so clear, so hard and so sure that a poet, unable to simply draw it, and reduced rather to speaking of it, is at first at a loss for images. He is arrested in his flight towards dream values by the geometrical reality of the forms. And these forms are so numerous, often so original, that after a positive examination of the shell world, the imagination is defeated by reality. Here it is nature that imagines, and nature is very clever.”  - Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

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Mara Hoffman SS21

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“Sea shells have enchanted mankind, apparently, as far back as human records go. Their variety of shape, color, structure, texture and mode of adaption seems inexhaustible. Small wonder that people have always found pleasure in owning them, and artists and craftsmen have incorporated them in everything ranging from massive architecture to personal jewelry”.¹

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Maryam Nassir Zadeh SS21 + Resort 21

“It’s easy and wearable, but still special, because we’re mixing these strong basics with novelty accessories.” Jennifer Park, @jennn_park, cites shell embossed leather, and pearlescent shoe charms as key motifs for SS21 + Resort collections ²

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Simone Rocha SS21

“[My main references were] the female form, the body. I was looking at a work by Richard Prince and Bettie Kline ... That then brought me to the idea of the form and body and how it was also portrayed historically. “This season it was about finding the balance in the sobering and exploding, pragmatic and foreboding, personal, provocative, suggestive intimacy and excavating. [I was trying to evoke] strength, fragility, understanding, stillness and resolve” ³ Simone Rocha

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Alberta Ferrertti SS21

“In this difficult situation, so harsh and unforgiving in many ways, my gut instinct was to embrace kindness and a certain seductive softness. I believe that it stems from self-confidence and from the acceptance of the natural power of femininity...Romanticism is a manifestation of strength, not of weakness.” ⁴ Alberta Ferretti

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Nanushka SS21 collection includes fishing net tights adorned with oyster forms, fluted hats reminiscent of Botticelli’s clamshell and other handicraft motifs.

“I was so shocked that I felt so different in the middle of nature than in the city. And then it made me think what does nature do to me, that makes me feel so different? I felt that it has this kind of transformative power or this kind of balancing power.” ⁵ Sandra Sandor

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This is an excerpt of an article from our past issue. Subscribe to read more on:

• The shell form shows up in fashion collections and will move into home categories.

• How the shell can show up as form and motif; influencing shape and structure as well as pattern and color.

• The symbolic nature of the shell form.

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SOURCES

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¹The shell; five hundred million years of inspired design, 1973^{Hugh and Marguerite Stix + R. Tucker Abbott
2}Maryam Nassir Zadeh SS21^Vogue
3Strength and Fragility: See Simone Rocha’s S/S21 Collection ^{Another Magazine
4}Alberta Ferretti SS21 ^Vogue
5Nanushka SS21 ^Vogue

PHOTO CREDITS

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Mara Hoffman SS21 ^{Courtesy of Mara Hoffman}
Maryam Nassir Zadeh SS21 ^{Courtesy of MNZ}
Maryam Nassir Zadeh Resort21 ^{Courtesy of MNZ}
Simone Rocha SS21 ^{Courtesy of Simone Rocha}
Simone Rocha SS21 ^{Jacob Lillis}
Alberta Ferretti SS21 ^{Courtesy of Alberta Ferretti}
Nanushka SS21 ^{Courtesy of Nanushka}