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| Sunday, 21 September 2003 |
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by Farah Macan Markar The wall of the outside corridor is filled with paper cuttings of fashion shows. In an open room to the corner, silent sewing machines lie still, needles up, waiting. Passing by on to the next room (which is more like a miniature hall) young girls and a few young guys are bunched up on stools, in ones and twos, paint brush at hand, dabbing spots of bright liquid on their colour plates. As it is, it turns out to be a Colour Composition class.
This is LIFT (Lanka Institute of Fashion Technology) and the young designer I've come to meet is 19 year old Sasrika Charthurangi Senaratne. Winner of the best Avantgarde in the JD Annual Awards held this January, she is also the only designer from LIFT to be selected to study at the North Hampton University, UK where she will proceed directly onto her second year (being exempted from the first) in a degree in fashion designing. Sasrika, who bubbles with life and enthusiasm, brings out her portfolio and speaks of her passion, her style and way she sets about to work. Fashion she says is a media which depicts expression. "It's a mode of self expression and gives one an immense sense of self satisfaction as well". Fashion Designing (FD), being an art in itself, Sasrika has during her diploma in FD at LIFT (which was then the JD Institute of Fashion Technology), woven five major themes (which she thought of, planned and worked out in five days), "The American Mind and The Arabian Life Style", "The Reality of Life", "The Court of Dragons", "Fading Humanity" and "Voices of the Wood".
The costumes shown in "The Reality of Life" follows a theory of impermanence, based on Buddhist philosophy. The fact that "Nothing Lasts Forever" is spelled out in the designs, from the disappearing mists woven into one piece of clothing, to the rare, shimmering rainbows, glistening in another. A particular striking piece is a dress depicting the bloomage of pink flower. Says Sasrika "The flower blooms and blooms, reaching for its pinnacle, and when it finally gets there, it begins to wilt. Life too is like the flower, blossoming to death. Nothing is permanent". Sasrika loves to read, especially classics and history. This can be seen in her next piece of work "The Court of the Dragons", which is based on dragons found in Chinese mythology. Using colour and design, each of these six dress sketches show the six Fire Breathing Creatures, "Heavenly", "Imperial", Spiritual", "Earthly", "Guardians of The Hidden Treasure" and "The Awakening and Sleep" whose breath defines night and day, season and rainfall. This is the main dragon in Chinese legendry. The four seasons of it are shown in four colours, blue, green, red and white, night and day. Night and Day is symbolised through the graphical spiral of designs of the Moon and Sun.
For everything there is an opposite. Big-Small. Hot-Cold. Light-Darkness. It is the latter most adjective, which Sasrika shows in "Fading Humanity". The costumes depict the dark side of humanity such as anger, jealousy, hatred, greed and violence. A Volcano erupting on one dress, shows the bursting of this inner turmoil to the outside world, causing havoc and destruction. On a quieter note, one dress is patterned up with white outlined, black rocks. "These rocks" says Sasrika "show human straits of stubbornness, insensitivity and hardness". The ultimate result in fading humanity is War, and this Sasrika shows through a dress, which has a broken pigeon's feather cut at its neckline. On a lighter vein "Voices of the Wood" bounces with bright, gay colours, showing various images of nature. It is inspired from a song, of which the creator of these designs gently murmurs in remembrance "...In springtime we greet thee in song...Murmurs of gladness...Voices long hushed...now their fullness...". Born on November 19th 1983, Sasrika whose more popularly known as Sue, studied in President's College and then Royal Institute. It was while she was doing her O's that Sue first got interested in fashion. "My cousin was doing fashion designing at the time. Seeing her at it, motivated me to go in the same field" says Sue. Her late father, who was the General Manager of the Industrial Development Port, was her biggest influence, giving her strength and courage. "I am also thankful to my mum for being there for me" says she. At present Sue is working on a project based on the history of costumes, and has spent her time delving deep into the Elizabethan Era. A time when she says class could be recognised by the clothes they wore, and where neither mixed, with the exception of at the Globe Theatre, where upper, middle and lower class, flocked to see their most famous and contemporary of playwright's plays. "His plays were for everybody" says Sue "There were bawdy jokes for the low classes, action and intrigue for the middle, and character and language for the upper". It is this class interception for a piece of art, that Sasrika wants to depict in her garments. "I want to show the class intermingling through his plays" she says. Her designs will be based, on non other but, "Romeo and Juliet". Sue's ambition for her future? Give her best in whatever she does and be an innovative, adequate designer. |
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