Elke Walter “one of a kind” Haute Couture creations certainly belong to the rare pieces, that you should consider to collect.
Elke was born and raised in a small German town on the North Sea coast and was for over 7 years living and working in Provence. Attracted to Provence by the sun, She began designing clothing in the 1990s in France, and her business, Elke Walter Design, was officially launched in 2002 when she opened her atelier in Hamburg.
But did she creat fashion or rather art?
Her approach would not exactly be described as classic or conventional. As an autodidact, she has developed her very own path to fashion and redefines the creative process for herself.
Elke discovered fabrics by chance while living in Montpellier. This was the spontaneous start of her devotion to fabrics. Having never worked with this medium before, Elke was entirely self-taught. Her basic premise: a good fabric has all it needs as a medium to create sculptural work.
Always pushing the boundaries, from the beginning Elke’s work explored the possibilities of manipulating her medium, adding dimensions by twisting, turning, stretching, and creating shapes that seem as if to be born out of a cosmic reef, where the objects seem to move gently with the tide.
For her objects she was sculpting her fabrics into single pieces with a fixed volume, later assembled and sewn together for the final shape – each one unique, no two of them are identical.Individuality, extravagance and elegance were the aim of every collection. The way she achieved this was rather unusual. Her work was based on a rectangular piece of fabric; sometimes other rectangles are added. She did not draw, instead, she visualizes them in person using live models and mannequins. Her fashionable creations are truely one of a kind.
The basic shape is enlivened by giving it volume using a specially developed folding technique. This production technique makes the dresses particularly comfortable to wear.
Walker was perhaps best known for dressing the enigmatic Zaha Hadid whom she met during Design Miami 2006, where her garments were on display at a charity event. Hadid tried the pieces and about half a year latercontacted Elkes PA and asked if the pieces were still available,”
Since then, Hadid had chosen Walter’s designs to wear for photoshoots and the opening events for her high-profile building projects including the Guangzhou Opera House.
“When I know it’s for a special event, I do something that nobody else would and she looks so great in it and I love that,” said Walter.
She revealed that she was happy to find a customer who likes her designs. “Regular customers find my designs too crazy”. “Maybe Hadid had some of the craziness that I have.”
All models were produced in Elke Walter’s studio in Hamburg. The highest possible quality was the top priority. The Elke Walter one-of-a-kinds, which always bear her name, were made byElke Walter herself. “I create the shape by cutting straight into the fabric, or holding it up like a sculpture but it takes a lot of time,” she explained. “I want to give it a shape from all sides so you could also put it on a hanger and use it as a decorative piece, thats my goal.”
Her extraordinary design and sophisticated collections have not only brought her many prominent customers, but also invitations to exhibit in international museums and design galleries.
Elke Walter’s fashion was sold worldwide, but the heart of the company remains the store and adjoining studio in Hamburg.
Style
Elke Walter experiments, draped and constructed. Her collections were always a mixture of more individual models, reminiscent of works of art, and wearable dresses for special occasions.Crushed silks, flowing jerseys and shiny textured surfaces. She chooses strong colors in a plain look that emphasize the sharp edges and folds. But light metallic tones are also mixed in.Elke Walter has divided her avant-garde collections into different areas:
TOKYO by ELKE WALTER (pure design, color: black, in jap. high-tech poly and/or jersey), ELKE WALTER seasonal, ELKE WALTER ONE-OFs (haute couture) as seen on the fotos.
Walter primarily worked with synthetic fabrics as they tend not to crease as much as natural materials.”The advantage of these new fibres is that you can wash them, you can wear them, you can sit on them, you can sleep in them, they don’t change.” “I can’t stand it when somebody gets up from sitting in a silk dress and it’s all crinkled.” Her garments were often voluminous and used a lot of material, creating flexibility and allowing them to fit any body type.
Meeting architects and designers and creating one-of-a-kind garments made her discover the aesthetic similarities in their creative approach. But the final touch of inspiration came from nature.
Over the years she broadend her creative spectrum and started making fabric sculptures. Thus creating images made with the same creative and abstract curiosity. What in the beginning was a way of documenting her fabric work finally became a passion: photography.
Her creations are very hard to get second hand, we are very lucky to offer some of them and so are the people who already bought her One OF’s Haute Couture dresses and coats from us.