Dainius Bendikas
How can you leave aside the materiality of our existence and design an innovative and eccentric collection? You should ask to Dainius Bendikas, a 25 year-old Lithuanian designer freshly graduated from the Vilnius Art Academy and now based in Reykjavik, Iceland.
In the Icelandic capital, he interned with the designer Sruli Recht and was inspired by his mysterious aesthetic, and come out with strong, creative and engaging collections. His most recent AW 2012 collection, named Infinite We Are – the Moon Monk Project, is a flow of fabrics, colors and shapes that leaves no doubts: Bendikas knows how to bewitch the eye of the beholder.
Behind every collection lies a story, his creations have a strong theatrical influence, sculptured hems and seams, each piece is an intricately crafted part of a larger story. Clothes, being hand crafted, are the perfect mix between the scene costumes and the required functionality of the modern garments. The designer wanted that the complexity of the clothes and the comfort has a personal balance, that’s why he chose fabrics such as cotton, wool, leather and linen, to merge together into a collection so attentive to details that didn’t sacrifice complex cuts and factitious drapes.
Dominant feature of this collection is the “infinity of the human”, according to Bendikas everyone is here for the same reason and yet everyone has an individual purpose. Everyone is here to experience life as deeply as possible, and yet your individual purpose is to explore your unique character. The space that surrounds us is mostly immaterial, pure energy with no mass and no volume. The project of designing this collection was inspired by some major changes faced by Bendikas and his exploration of the surrounding universe, and so the desire to translate and give life to his thoughts into real shapes and substance.
The leitmotiv of the collection, that inspired also the look book, is the moon eclipse on the 26th June 2010. Colors, fabrics and strong lines remind the shades taken by the moon that night and give life to a collection consisting of an anthology of people connected by a deep emotional bond, characterized by the continuous evolution.
The collection is a mix of retro pieces and modern ones – shirts and jackets with cross-cuts, skinny black jeans, and pants jockey-style remember retro-post-modern outfits, on the other side hats similar to volcanic craters or the Moon Walks (orthopedic shoes in collaboration with Ortho Baltic Footwear Company) that have molded soles with CAD Tech and inspired by the complex personality of the Moon Monks.
Bendikas’ man is nomadic, otherworldly modern, a mind traveler, a space philosopher with a dynamic and strong inner personality. According to the designer, the perfect man to represent his collection is a man eager to evolve, to transform and blend in the surrounding space.
Infinite We Are is the story of a soul looking for the infinite. The Monks are dressed in moon to look for themselves, are you ready?
