The fresh prince of Poland

Konrad Parol’s spring–summer 2011 collection was another fresh and funky range, continuing his dive into H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine for inspiration, reports Joanna Mroczkowska
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ŁUKASZ DZIEWIC

KONRAD PAROL IS a very young designer based in Warszawa, Poland. The city is also his silent inspiration, the people all around him, people like him. Being a male fashion designer is his whole life: without doubt he can be called the Prince of Polish fashion, and is one of those men of whom you should hear if you’re into fashion, into something new and fresh.
   The country’s fashion industry got a big buzz around him after his first show at Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week Poland some time ago. He shone the brightest in the OFF (off-schedule) shows hosted in city of Lodz. OFF is a part of Fashion Week Poland where young alternative fashion designers get their five minutes, and Parol got his for sure. International press loved his work the most. Since then, his designes have appeared in, inter alia, Zink, Collezioni, and The Fashionisto and Maison Chaplin blogs.
   In October this year, during the third Fashion Week in Poland, Parol presented his spring–summer 2011 collection called Ember, a continuation of what he launched in May called Rebels. Both have been inspired by the science fiction book The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells.
   Rebels, the first part, represented the part of Wells’s future society called Eloi, a kind of elegant, androgynous, and childlike people. Ember is the representation of the Morlocks who were pale, ape-like people, living underground. The designer this time wanted to show the other side of a man, a creature dark and proud. He wanted to underline their brutality and their warrior nature, things that are in every man, even if they don’t want to admit it. Konrad Parol uses natural cotton, Lurex, Neoprene foam, mesh and Plexiglas.
   The next edition of Fashion Week in Poland will be on May 4–8, where Parol will show his next collection. We expect that it will be as fresh and funky as the rest of his work. •

Joanna Mroczkowska is Lucire’s Polish correspondent.

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photographed by Douglas Rimington/Detune Photography