Israeli fashion show attempts to go “au naturale” with a natural-landmark-themed garment contest.
Fashion and the natural world don’t always go hand in hand (unless you’re lucky enough to come across some whimsical banana-shaped pumps by designers such as Kobi Levi). Usually haute couture is the anti-natural, with silhouettes that combat the shapes that we were born with and materials (such as fur) that require the destruction of something natural. Yet in an attempt to come up with a national garment for Israelis, fashion designers decided to center their inspiration on the natural.
Namely, on Israel’s only freshwater lake, the Sea of Galilee.
Displayed in a garment design contest/fashion show in Tiberias (a city that is located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee) during the last few days of Sukkot, the designers demonstrated that the natural is a powerful source of inspiration.
The designers were also calling attention to the fact that the lake is in serious trouble in need of a serious makeover.
The Sea of Galilee is Israel’s largest fresh water reservoir and is a major source for Israeli water consumption. The water levels have steadily declined over recent years, due to years of drought, and now the levels are so low that there is danger that the laktgreee may become salt water.
Liraz Rubin, one of the fashion designers whose work was displayed in the show, said that “my design is inspired by the lake, where the fish want to live but the water is getting scarce and the lake is sad. You can see in the design itself that the fishermen can hardly find any fish. It’s a cry to save the Sea of Galilee and its fish.”
For some of the judges, though, the focus was more on fashion and less on conservation. Yuval Kaspin, an Israeli celebrity designer and one of the judges, said that “in some of the designs the connection between the Sea and the garment was definitely discernible. The designs which caught our attention the most were those that indeed reminded us of the Sea, but did not ‘over-chew’ the concept for us.”
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