Scent of profit: Duty-free inspires new designer at VFiles show

New York – For its spring/summer 2015 runway show during New York Fashion Week, online fashion e-commerce and social platform VFiles presented the work of four newcomer designers to an energised crowd of downtown fashion fans.

VFiles chose the designers in part through a crowdsourced voting process. They represented global fashion markets, both emerging and established – Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Russian designer and Central Saint Martins graduate Tigran Avestiyan was the first to display his work, which was inspired by five fragrance bottles that he bought in airport duty-free shops. Dresses and jackets were emblazoned with bold primary colours and the phrase ‘duty free’, while models carried a clear plastic bag holding a bottle that Avestiyan had fused together from all five fragrances. The fabric itself had a crinkly sheen like plastic shopping bags.

Avestiyan’s work was the strongest and most pertinent to the overall context of the show, a New York event featuring overseas designers. The global capitalist space represented by the duty-free shop ties this international creative community together. But it also raises ethical dilemmas, as suggested by the fragmented bottles and the phrase ‘duty free’.

The collection represented a darker side of the capitalist kitsch that LS:N Global describes in our Iconoclash design direction.