Imperfect Beauty - The Story behind the Aquarelle Finish
A PERSONAL NOTE ON HOW THE CINTEMANI COLLECTION CAME TOGETHER
In a world of Photoshop, Instagram filters and an omnipresent forced self-optimisation, it may seem radical to remind ourselves of the beauty of imperfection. Yet, throughout the history of art, we find many cultures and traditions that embraced the truthfulness and sublimity of imperfection. For example, let's think about the Japanese "Wabi-Sabi" philosophy that is about the acceptance of roughness, asymmetry and the genuine natural order of imperfection.
Immaculate beauty sometimes creates a painful distance. It seems so otherworldly, so aloof. It does not connect with us. It was precisely this feeling that was aroused in me when I started creating the Cintemani Collection. I can very well remember the moment when I decided to choose the Ottoman silks and velvets as inspiration and background story for a collection of scarves and foulards. On the last day of 2019 I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum in London with one of my best friends who herself has a Turkish background and therefore an innate understanding for the Ottoman design language. We were both fascinated by the daring simplicity and boldness of the exhibited pieces we looked at.
I then made some drawings that picked up and re-imagined some of the forms I saw, and I digitised them. I couldn’t help - I simply didn't get the feeling. It all looked cold and distant. I didn't feel the air and history of those pieces that originally inspired me. Then I examined some of the original pieces more closely. And I realised their imperfection. Circles weren't real circles. Symmetry wasn't real symmetry. And the traces of time did the rest to the textiles' appearance.
I then started to play with these elements of imperfection. I corrupted the symmetry, I slightly flawed the outlines of the design elements. And I drew an aquarelle-like backdrop. Suddenly I felt connected to the designs. Suddenly they seemed to tell a story. Suddenly they became "alive".
This phenomenon isn't new, of course. But I found it incredible how clearly I could feel the beauty of imperfection during the process of understanding the beauty of the pieces I had seen in the Victoria & Albert Museum. The Aquarelle-like "stains" give a unique depth to all of the scarf designs. In some pieces the effect is more intense than in others. It creates a velvety, umbral effect that serves as a reminiscence to the traces of time that we can see on the ancient pieces of the Bursa silks and velvets which inspired the Cintemani Collection.
Pick your favourite piece from the collection and try to find all the little imperfections that make your scarf tell its own, individual story of beauty!