In addition to her incredibly intricate and avant-garde designs, Lara Klawikowski is well known as a sustainable fashion designer.
Klawikowski is both a fashion designer and illustrator of Polish and Russian heritage based in Cape Town.
She studied at the Cape Town College of Fashion Design and launched her eponymous label in 2010 after graduating and winning the SACTWU Condom Dress Design Award.
She showed her first ready-to-wear collection at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Cape Town in 2013.
"Ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated by fashion, clothes and especially how clothes are made. I spent most of my childhood dressing and draping, wrapping and tying my clothes, my mother's clothes, even my doll's clothes on myself and my sister," says Klawikowski in an interview with IOL.
As for her design process, she says she is most inspired by fabrics and using unusual materials for clothing.
"I start each collection by creating individual, handmade panels of material using scraps from industry (fabric offcuts) and combining the pieces with other recycled materials," she explains.
"This gives way to limitless new textures that influence the structure, drape and fall of the fabric and guide the silhouette and proportion of my designs. It feels casual and almost collaborative, with a creative energy," she adds.
She says it's a process of working with available resources and turning them into something surprisingly beautiful.
"It's time consuming and labor intensive, but it brings me joy knowing I'm diverting waste away from the earth," says the designer.
Klawikowski uses fabric scraps collected from her own designs in her studio, and also buys fabric scraps from Rewoven (they collect fabric scraps from major fashion retailers) and recycled plastic.
She combines all the pieces in creative ways to form recycled materials for her collections.
Sometimes the pieces from Rewoven, labelled as waste and destined for landfill, are metres long and she can then cut out whole patterns of clothing.
But most of the time they are smaller pieces and more challenging, creative.
"I can create my own textile prints or fabric collages from the 'waste' fabric," she says.
She describes her designs as feminine, textured, artisanal and intriguing.
"They are imaginative, intriguingly sculptural and tactile and have an otherworldly beauty and edge. Unexpected proportions, unpredictable use of fabrics and reworked materials, and precise finish and construction are key features of my work," she says of her work.
"I would like the beauty of my designs to inspire a greater appreciation and respect for clothing, materials and resources and to show that what we call waste is actually a resource and with design integrity waste can be turned into something good for people and the planet," says Klawikowski.
As for the importance of sustainable fashion, she says the conscious, sustainable angle when designing makes her work more meaningful and purposeful beyond mere aesthetics.
Klawikowski will show her latest collection at Cape Town Fashion Week in April.
"I put together a mix of green cut-outs and designed a collection of mostly cocktail and evening dresses. After seeing the Statement Sleeves exhibition at the FIT Museum in New York, I was inspired to explore sleeve shapes," she says. /BGNES
