Mesh Black Dress – Look 19

WIDOWS OF MACONDO COLLECTION

This collection is inspired by the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude – One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien años de Soledad, American Spanish: is a landmark 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the (fictitious) town of Macondo. The novel is often cited as one of the supreme achievements in literature.

The magical realist style and thematic substance of One Hundred Years of Solitude is established as an important representation novel of the literary Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, which was stylistically influenced by Modernism (European and North American) and the Cuban Vanguardia (Avant-Garde) literary movement.

Since it was first published in May 1967 in Buenos Aires by Editorial Sudamericana, One Hundred Years of Solitude has been translated into 46 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. The novel, considered García Márquez’s magnum opus, remains widely acclaimed and is recognized as one of the most significant works both in the Hispanic literary canon and in world literature.

DESIGNER’S INSPIRATION: Hollywood has been inspired by this book to create some of its most iconic films that depict magical realism from Harry Poter’s, Life of Pi to Crouching Tyger-Hidden Dragon. I was too enchanted by this saga from the moment I read it as a child for school assignments.

Throughout my designing career, it has influenced my storytelling in my sometimes-theatrical over-the-top fashion presentations. It is, however, until now that I felt compelled to select a direct thread of its vast stories and interpret it in an actual collection. Windowing is a constant sentiment in this novel and on this collection, I intend to showcase how I feel these people would have dressed during their period of bereavement or lack thereof. Since Macondo is supposed to be set in the middle of a tropical jungle in Colombia, I wish to express all the human emotions through the collection, prudent dresses with coquette accents to men’s oversize coats which may implicate guilt to sacrosanct outfits in some Catholic restrictive but yet too sexy garments – all framed with incredible details and forms.