Campaign
Lookbook
"A Litho Odd"
Inspired by curves, he plays around with them by distorting them, elongating them and even adding lines and other geometric shapes to complement the curves. The collection is separated into three main groups; flat, 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional. In the Flat section, simplicity takes the main stage as the focus of each garments are the necklines, openings and pockets. In the 2D segment, Moto applies the free motion pebble quilting techniques to evoke various emotions and to put their perspectives into play, foreshadowing the beginning of the end of the collection. The collection ultimately comes to a completion with the 3D segment which features the Shibori bubble pleating method. The effect is that 3D bubbles are created on the surface of the garment, challenging audience’s visual senses to go beyond into the physical.
The curve idea came from a vintage kid’s book Moto was reading from. Taxed out of doing design research, he picked up a book to read and unwind. “It was a Question and Answer book with questions by kids. While I was going through the book, I realized that the author explained everything from social matters to personal circumstances using a formula and suddenly it hit me – the answers lie within the Curve. The Curve explained everything so by using the curve, I hope to invoke the audience’s thought process to make them ponder and question about it.” Moto explained.
The kid’s book helped out the designer to build his collection aesthetically but the actual backstory to the collection lies within the heart of the designer himself as the collection is a translation of his emotions. The collection, aptly named “A LITHO ODD” is definitely odd, especial- ly with the way “little” is spelt.
“Litho is short for Lithopedion,” Moto explains. “It means stone baby or fossilized baby, a strange biology phenomenon where when a baby is in the womb and taking its shape, it dies fossilized. The mother carrying the fossilized baby might not even notice that she was pregnant in the first place!”
Upon learning about fossilized babies, the designer contemplated about it for several days, even imagining the situations that might have caused and were caused by this peculiar occurrence. “Perhaps the baby, in its limited senses, overheard what was going on beyond its womb. Perhaps it has heard of the ugly truth and hypocrisy that is the world and decided not to exit the womb.” Moto continues. “So the baby fossilizes itself to protect itself from the entering the jaded world. Having its presence barely known, it retreats back to complete nothingness.”
“When the stone baby is discovered one way or another, it is bound to elicit a spectrum of emotions from people. Because it is exposed, it would be a topic of conversation that would generate shock and an unsettling feeling in the gut. This would be followed by wave after wave of other types of emotions by different kinds of people.” Moto closes as he is done explaining his concept for the FW 2015 collection. His mouth forms to a little blank smile yet his tired eyes were caught in deep thought. It is apparent that designer Moto Guo just wants to do what his heart desires without a care for people and situations that would only generate problems and obstacles that would bring him away from fulfilling his will. Occasionally, he would like to draw inspirations from vintage children’s books.
motoguo is an eponymous label that challenges peculiarity in the most romantic, cynical and ingenious manner since 2015.
