Viera Kleinová
Ethnic style has always held a place in textile design because designers used it as a well-recognized source of inspiration. Michaela Ľuptáková and Marcel Holubec, students of the Textile Department of Bratislava’s University of Fine Arts, looked at traditional clothes from a different point of view. Based on Slovak folk clothes, they designed a collection where the main heroine was a Slovak country woman and her life from the youth to old age, with everything that she was accompanied with throughout her life. Marcel and Michaela created their collection not only based on the use of decorative motives, colour or the cut of Slovak costume. Their clothes show significantly the use of symbolism reflecting strong Catholicism in the country environment – it depicts important and untouchable religious motives in an eccentric and provocative way. The elements of folk costume are shown in their collection as adapted to the language of current fashions – the decorativeness of clothes made by the use of printed ornament. Ribbons, crumpling, bracing, corsets or head decorations also evoke traditional roots.