Inspired by her ballet past, Caroline Reznik’s crystalised creations take on a new meaning of beauty.
Drawing inspiration from her former classic ballet training, Caroline Reznik shares the intricate techniques of creating crystallised garments. Her debut collection, LÀ DEDANS HER was completed during lockdown with the aim of making her work stand out in a saturated field of designers.
Perfect: Where does your love for clothing and fashion come from?
Caroline Reznik: I was formally a classical ballet dancer and I spent many of my years in admiration of my mother who was a costume maker and bead detailer. I was always sewing a pair of pointe shoes, making myself garments from old clothes and dance-wear fabrics, or beading for therapeutic enjoyment.
My days in a ballet studio meant that we all looked like a carbon copy of each other. Our hair was slicked back in a bun and our attire was a sea of the same. My love for fashion grew in my teenage years. Getting dressed for the morning and end of each day after training in a studio were moments that I looked forward to expressing my individuality each day.
Perfect: Who or what elements influence your style and creativity most?
Caroline Reznik: I see fashion as movement and I see movement as dance. Ballet’s unique art form has allowed me to rediscover the body and movement. Within each garment, methodologies and theories from dance are considered and re-imagined on the body.
Perfect: What techniques are key to constructing a garment in your signature silhouette?
Caroline Reznik: The silhouettes in my collection are labour intensive. My practice is formed through technical structures which are either hand-manipulated on a domestic knitting machine, sewn together by hand or manually applied as applique pieces before they are constructed together under an industrial sewing machine.
Perfect: What can your work and brand tell us about you as an individual?
Caroline Reznik: The work I produce can tell you that I am a passionate and highly curious individual. I love to experiment in solitude through the push and pull of my work and, sometimes, struggles during development which leaves room for discovery in the unknown of where a textile can lead me.
Perfect: What are the most difficult materials you have worked with? Which have you enjoyed the most?
Caroline Reznik: The most difficult materials I have worked with thus far would be my knitted crystal garments. The weight of the crystal changes the drape and fall of the garment, which ultimately gives the piece a lot of its ambiguity! It is also a process that I have to be very alert for as there are intricate cable structures that accompany the application of the crystal while fully fashioning the garment simultaneously.
Perfect: Out of all of your past projects, which are you most proud of and why?
Caroline Reznik: As a whole, I look back at my graduate collection LÀ DEDANS HER with a lot of pride. It was a year of unprecedented times for us all across the globe. Evolving my practice and imagining what our world would look like through the lens of my collection evoked worry and excitement at the same time. The aim was to tread in new territory in the hope that my work would stand strong in an arena that was already saturated.
