By Gabrielle Kennedy / 29-07-2009

In Iran the generalization is that smart girls end up as either doctors or artists.  “And it’s funny,” says Iranian-Dutch designer Melody Deldjou Fard.  “In Iran I wanted to be a doctor because it would have given me opportunities, but I ended up here and chased my real dreams by becoming a designer.”
 

Deldjou Fard left the troubled land of Iran for the Netherlands at fifteen and it is those dual cultural influences that inform much of her work today.

Last year she shot to prominence during Talent 2008 with “Body Merging,” her graduation work for the Utrecht School for the Arts.  Since then, she has been awarded the Piet Bakker Prize, presented at Hyères in France where Viktor & Rolf got their start fifteen years ago, and the Mode Fabriek in Amsterdam.  She has also been invited to a showroom exhibition during Milan Fashion Week and the Tex-World Internationale Fair in Paris as well as featuring in magazines across the globe for her interesting new take on fashion.

Deldjou Fard never exhibits with an entirely new collection, but rather an evolution of what came before. “Body Merging,” her performance piece from last year grew into Body Merging Transformation, which will next grow into Body Merging Abstraction. 

The concept starts with metaphors that delve into the horrors of body-part trafficking. “I come from a very controversial country where you can't just say things straight or you will be killed,” Deldjou Fard explains of her process.  “So I learnt to talk through metaphors.”
 
In the series, organs - sometimes graphic and sometimes abstract – adorn the body, which is transformed to reflect the limitless possibilities of technological intervention.  The Hyères exhibition included eight pieces in cotton and silk with metallic thread.  The models, wearing minimal body stockings, bare faces and brushed back hair to create an illusion of invisibility, walked down the runway holding life-sized dolls which wore the pieces.  As the show progressed, the dolls disappeared until the real human body eventually merges with the dress.

“In Hyères I did it more as a catwalk show rather than a performance,” Deldjou Fard says.   “It is a little bit surrealistic because I managed to create a small universe around my concept.  The role of the model changed to a mere carrier of the dressed dolls.  With that I was trying to challenge our understanding of fashion and sketch new possibilities in the fashion landscape.”

“Body Merging Transformation” is about human fragility in the face of contemporary society.  It’s poetic in a way that might be described as Iranian, but also conceptual in a way more typical of the Dutch - a fascinating juxtaposition of cultures that challenges the role of body transformation in what has up until the end of the last century been considered the last bastion of naturalness.

“You see Iran might be controversial in a very obvious way, but Holland is equally controversial to the outside world,” says Deldjou Fard.  “It’s controversial because of all its freedoms.” 

And it’s that freedom which creates the momentum in her evolving collections.  “I’m interested in the choices I make,” she says.  “In terms of the human body and its emotions and how it interacts with contemporary society.  Translating that into dresses is my biggest theme.”

The benefit of exhibiting at Hyères is that the international fashion elite turn up expecting to see the very best of the world’s young prospects.  “I don’t think they had ever seen anything like this,” Deldjou Fard says.  Based on her presentation she has been invited to make a perfume for Givaudan, the innovative perfume company renowned for working with Dior, Prada and Yves Saint Laurent.

The human body is no doubt changing, which will eventually change the way we perceive fashion. The way Deldjou Fard is challenging that perception by researching and expressing her discoveries is in many ways quite visionary. 

For her next collection, "Body Merging Abstraction," Deldjou Fard will take a more abstract approach to her developing concept.  And despite its heavy tone, she doesn’t want the message to be interpreted as all doom and gloom.  “I do see a happy ending in the whole transformation reality,” she says.  “I am just breaking the borders of fashion and communicating the world I create through my collections.”

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