Categories: Fashion

OtherFashion: Taiana Design

First time I came across Taiana Giefer’s work, I spent a while examining one of her scarves. It was majestic, in a fairy tale way, something from another era. I wondered about how it was constructed, the crisscrossing wool felt surfaces that formed a kind of a grid, leaving openings like fortress embrasures. The fringes looked liked dreadlocks; the whole things was tactile, alive. A year later I met the California-born designer when we used her scarves for one of the StyleZeitgeist magazine editorials.

Taiana began making her products in 2007. A year later Calvin Klein’s Francisco Costa noticed her work and asked her to produce special fabrics for his Fall/Winter 2009 collection. After this collaboration Taiana continued to work on her own.

So, about that construction: Taiana makes all the scarves herself. She felts the wool using water, organic soap, and her own hands, the same way it’s been done for hundreds of years. Each piece takes anywhere from 4 to 24 hours to felt.

Taiana sources the finest merino wool for her scarves from England, Australia, and the Falkland Islands, places with long traditions of sheep growing. She only deals with farms that grow their sheep humanely and whose wool is not subjected to harsh chemical treatments.

The designer also does all of her dyeing, using a low-impact dyeing method that has been classifies by the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 (An international Certification process) as eco-friendly. Low impact dyes do not contain toxic chemicals or mordants , require less rinsing and have high absorption rate in the fabric, which greatly reduces water waste. And it’s also how she gets those wonderfully deep colors.

Taiana’s desings are available on www.otherfashion.net

http://www.taianadesign.com

Eugene Rabkin

Eugene Rabkin is the founder of stylezeitgeist.com. He has contributed articles on fashion and culture to The Business of Fashion, Vogue Russia, Buro247, the Haaretz Daily Newspaper, and other publications. He has taught critical writing and fashion writing courses at Parsons the New School for Design.

Published by
Tags: product_s

Recent Posts

SHOP.CASE – LEMAIRE EBISU

There are stores that make you want to shop there just because. If you had…

Dec 19, 2024

Louise Bourgeois at the Mori Art Museum

The work of the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois is primal. Primal attachment and primal fear,…

Dec 13, 2024

Calder: Sculpting Time

The introduction of movement into sculpture. That implausible leap from the static to the temporal.…

Dec 11, 2024

Give Good Gift: 2024

Tired of generic gift guides? We've got you. As is our annual tradition of doing…

Dec 10, 2024

SHOP.CASE — Jil Sander Ginza

The newly opened Jil Sander flagship in Tokyo’s Ginza district, designed by the architecture firm…

Dec 6, 2024