Bubblegum Club

Tag: colours

  • Alex Paterimos – The young Cape Town based photographer interested in capturing sentimentality

    Alex Paterimos – The young Cape Town based photographer interested in capturing sentimentality

    Alex Paterimos is a young creative focusing his energies on photography and cinematography. Born in Greece, he spent the first four years of his life living in Athens. Thereafter his family moved to Ballito where he completed his high school education. Upon completing his secondary studies Alex felt that he needed to be part of a culturally rich space that challenged him artistically. Being drawn to the beauty and sense of community that he found in Cape Town, he is currently based in the city as a student of cinematography.  “Throughout my life, I had always wanted to enter the creative world, and always envisioned myself making art in some way.”

    The origin of Alex’s devotion to the craft of image creation is something that he can’t pin point to a specific time in his life as he states that he has had a passion for being behind the lens ever since he can remember. Receiving his first camera (a basic digital point and shoot) at the age of 12, he was awarded the opportunity to document his life. The drive behind Alex’s shutter release is sentimentality that translates into images of friends and memories captured in time.

    Formal training was accessed at the film school Alex attends where he was taught the essentials of photography and DSLR cameras. The main focus of his craft currently is developing his personal style and ensuring that his work conveys emotion to its onlookers. He predominantly works on 35mm film at present which facilitates in cultivating feelings of dreamlike nostalgia within his work.

    “Film adds a sense of value to an image for me and forces me to really perfect and love a photo before I take it. This process of crafting my images has helped me discover and nurture my passion for composition and lighting.”

    Inspiration comes to the young creative in observing the city he now calls home and new, yet undiscovered spaces for him. He shares with me that he is inspired by its architecture, colours he observes and the people that occupy these spaces. He is also interested in how human bodies are contrasted to their immediate surroundings. Taking from this he sometimes aims to replicate his observations in his shoots.

    Alex’s creative process for a shoot is one that unfolds in collaboration with his friends. Mood boarding and brainstorming about a shoot takes on a formative role in these developments. However, on the day of a shoot spontaneity often acts as a contributor to the final product.

    “Managing to effectively capture moments that just happen by chance is what I find most rewarding, as this aspect of spontaneity is encapsulated by the look of my 35mm point-and-shoot and essentially plays a big part in shaping my work.”

    To Alex, the central aspect of his image creation is evoking sentimentality and capturing the essence of the people he photographs as he feels strongly about not creating heartless work. “…I am focussing on developing my style and visual language first. I think that once I feel more confident in this, I will be able to begin pushing myself more creatively.” As Alex photographs his friends, his work can be said to contain an element of documentary-fiction.

    Alex’s raw talent seeps through his images that read like candid heart felt shots of friends. His work conveys not only sentimentality but a sense of who the people he photographs are. His work can be considered to be a reflection of the youth of Cape Town within this particular time and thus contains an element of documentary-fiction.

  • GOOM // Pushing the boundaries of menswear

    GOOM // Pushing the boundaries of menswear

    After starting off at Central Saint Martins studying womenswear print, GOOM designer Goom Heo reevaluated her position and felt the need to click pause. Being completely open about the fast-paced fashion lifestyle and the pressure that can come from being pushed into spaces that one is not ready for, Goom turned down potential placements with brands such as Dior, Kenzo and Margiela for a two year sabbatical from the industry, and went back home to Korea. However, she never stopped taking in the life she saw on the streets, and armed with her camera, she documented the trash that she found around Korea and China. Goom remembers one distinct moment, seeing a man roll up his t-shirt to expose his large belly, and no one around him being concerned about this.  For her this represents her decision to go back to CSM as well as the premise behind her final collection; not being concerned about what other people think and taking ownership of one’s fashion choices.

    Upon her return she switched to menswear, something that she hoped would wake her up creatively, considering that she had been out of the game for two years. Inspired by trash and the man she saw with his belly exposed, Goom translated the colours and textures from her photographs into her layered t-shirt design. Her final collection at CSM was a combination of these t-shirts, excessively broad shoulders for 80s-inspired tailored jackets and multicoloured turtlenecks. The collection was captured by blurry images, making the viewer absorb the garments through a trippy, hallucinatory glow.

    Having grown up in Korea, and spending one year in a small town in the US, Goom expressed how living in London while studying has allowed her to unleash her creativity, referring both to her own sense of style as well as her practice as a designer.

    “I thought I kind of wanted to do menswear in second year but I was scared of it because I thought of menswear having to be perfect with amazing sewing, pattern cutting and tailoring. But I thought ‘ok I can do that, or I can change it to be like something else’,” she expressed in an interview with Hunger, “I wouldn’t say my collection is 100% perfect or traditional menswear but you can still see hints of it. But what’s proper anyway?”

    Her collection is all about attitude, with male models walking assertively down the runway with shorts stretched over the bottom of oversized tailored jackets and white fishnet stockings pulled over models’ knees. Her decision to jump back into the industry received incredible validation when her collection won her the L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award.

    Goom is currently embarking on her MA, and the fashion world cannot wait to see how she will elevate and/or transform her already well-known name.