LARISSA VON PLANTA

Grey Sheep

https://www.instagram.com/larissa_von_planta/?hl=en

Location

beirut / United Kingdom

University

central saint martin

Graduation year

2016

Main Manufacturing Countries

lebanon

United Kingdom

Contact

LARISSA VON PLANTA’S BEIRUT ATELIER CREATES SUSTAINABLE ARTISANAL COUTURE USING FINE ANTIQUE AND PRE-OWNED TEXTILES. Based between Lebanon and the UK, Larissa's method combines upcycling and traditional craftsmanship, to give exceptional textiles and skills a new lease of life in honour of the history and heritage they hold. Crafting each piece from carefully selected existing garments and textiles, Larissa elevates upcycling to exhibit the rare beauty, history and humanity to be found in second-hand and antique materials.

The thorough training Larissa received at Central Saint Martins and with Savile Row tailors Byrne and Burge cemented her belief that the highest form of luxury design is one which holds a personal story and which endures. The atelier primarily offers bespoke commissions working with her clients to transform precious heirloom clothes into revived and unique pieces.

Larissa presented her work at the WSM Showroom at Milan Fashion Week January 2020, the first event dedicated entirely to fashion design and sustainable innovation in Italy, in recognition of her pioneering approach to sustainable fashion and upcycling. This followed the launch of her first capsule collection of embroidered designs which was exhibited in Mustique over the Christmas season.

Latest Collection

Star regeneration

In Larissa von Planta’s 2016 Central Saint Martins BA Womenswear Final Collection she seeks to understand the value of nostalgic attachments in inherited family garments and textiles; objects which continue to age, fade and disintegrate. By up-cycling her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s dresses and other refined collected fabrics, she considers the person who used to wear them, how they were valued and why they were kept. Making distinctive, personal alterations, Larissa’s distinctive destructive restorative process shows the value of the old in the new as well as identity and heritage in the development of a personal style.

The process is akin to the life cycle of a star. As a star absorbs dust and gas from outer space, so does Larissa’s collection gather ancient materials and align their emotional values. Then, the Star begins to fuel itself by consuming the energy within. Nostalgia in Larissa’s designs served as this this energy: “I felt a nostalgia when handling these objects that was emotionally draining and constrained my creativity.”

But eventually the Star’s own energy runs out and it explodes. A radical and at times uncomfortable cut-away from the past becomes a reviving way of processing, and detachment. Finally, the Star decays. “I realised the values attributed to the objects were not my own and although I respected them, I had to evolve and see how I could design and revive the objects in a completely personal and contemporary way.”

A new formation begins to absorb the old Star’s dust and gas and the cycle begins anew

Previous collections

2200

Latest Collection

Star regeneration

Previous collections

2200

Films