Flora Miranda AW2019 “LaLaLand” Couture Runway Show

Flora Miranda, Antwerp-based Austrian fashion designer presented her AW2019 new couture collection themed “LaLaLand” at Elysées Biarritz in Paris recently. The designer has made it her duty to research the internet and come up with astonishing collections, discussing developments in technology, while developing new technologies herself.

The collection was part of a process of teaching computers how garments work: in this specific work Flora Miranda teaches machines what erotic clothing is, covering different niches of human sexuality.

The collection presents her work-in-progress, the status quo of her research on erotics, machine-learning and the internet. In the progress of developing the collection, Flora Miranda is currently establishing a database for a creative computer, from which the computer can gain information about how different kinds of garments work, how they translate on the body and what they express.

The Idea

The origin of Flora Miranda’s inspiration in eroticism lies in the overdrawn feminine shapes of online-Avatars in the 90s. Although she questions the gender roles behind the Avatars, the image of the ideal woman - femininity intensified to an extent, where there is nothing left but breast, backside and legs - intrigued her and inspired her to play with feminine erotics in her collection.

Each piece in her current work portrays a different woman with her own erotic identity - varying from romantic and flirty to cyber-aesthetic and bondage looks. The shapes change with each dress, as Flora Miranda designed them specifically to reference a certain type of sexual identity. Those identities are partly categorised in a way she has put them into the database, teaching the computer about feminine eroticism.

The Materials

In her upcoming collection, the designer is using a technique based on a tulle-method which allows her to draw cyber-romantic silhouettes. 

Unlike in her last collection, not the dresses themselves are computer generated, but some of the patterns on the fabric.  There will also be two dresses made of silicone, the material Flora Miranda is known for using.

The Show

The presentation of “LaLaLand” is conceptualized by Flora Miranda and the Austrian dancer Florentina Holzinger, who is known for her dirty depiction of the female body. The dancer, a superstar of the contemporary European dance scene, is both famous and infamous for her outstanding choreographies, in which she not only satirizes political matters, but also challenges gender stereotypes.

The whole show was playing with romantic cyber-aesthetics, using gelatine and gadgets to portray the virtual flesh and vague looks of the digital age. In cooperation with the musician T e l e p a t h, the show will be supported with music of the genre Vaporwave, an online movement that came out of the postponement of subcultures into the internet.