Concrete Collar is a project based around the link between fashion and architecture, run by two former UCD architecture students Ciana March and Becky Wallace, who bonded over a shared interests of fashion and the blogging medium, as well as their academic pursuits:
“It seemed obvious to us to join forces and research the overlap between our two favourite design disciplines. Both architecture and dress are based on the form and and requirements of the human body and on ideas of space, volume, and movement. Both act as mediators between the body and the environment and are also forms of self-expression and give personal, political and cultural identity to both their creators and consumers. We noticed a gap in the discourse, the subject hadn’t yet been adequately explored and we wanted to explore this in the blog,” they explain. The values they learned studying in UCD stuck with them and inform the project. “‘Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas’, that is, be useful, solid and beautiful – an appreciation for craftsmanship and simplicity. We were encouraged to let site, culture, climate and history inform the materiality and form of our designs.”
Inspired by architects like Louis Kahn and Irish firm O’Donnell + Tuomey, and designers like Simone Rocha and Alexander Wang, their blog features shoots they have styled themselves mixing, for example, shots of brutalist apartment blocks with clothes from Stills Atelier. And these two are just getting started: “Now that we have both achieved our Masters we have the opportunity to give Concrete Collar our all. We’re looking forward to seeing where this next chapter takes us. We have both diverted from architecture for the time being but are still working in the field of design. Art direction, brand consulting and design is keeping us busy!”
Check out their work at theconcretecollar.blogspot.ie
Words: Ian Lamont / Photography via Concrete Collar
