In another instalment of our Behind The Seams series showcasing the amazing people behind the emerging brands in our pop up shop we introduce you to Amal Kiran Jana. His stunning leather bags are just the right balance wearable and inspired design.
Erebus: The fashion industry, and especially fashion accessories, is very saturated. How do you feel your work stands out among the crowd?
Amal: Yes its true things are getting saturated and its quite difficult to sustain a presence in the fashion industry. But my whole idea of creating a collection is very conceptual, it is my emotional way of story telling. My work will definitely stand out and be different from other designers because it is my emotions and it is my story. Of course it is very time consuming process as you have to make people believe in your idea, story, emotion and creations.
Erebus: Your designs are a balance between avant-garde, conceptual and commercial pieces. How do you accomplish that delicate balance?
Amal: This is very interesting; I would say achieving this delicate balance is like getting salvation. You practise and practise and experiment; sometimes you achieve this salvation and sometimes in a lifetime one simply does not attain salvation. I will always be thankful to Barbara Trebitsch, Ernesta & Daniela Puppa, while studying in Domus Academy they guided and challenged my ideas to the extreme. Finding a path to merge the avant-garde & conceptual ideas into a very sophisticated, sellable product. I still continue to work to improve and improvise every time.
Erebus: How does coming from an artistic family influence your work?
Amal: The idea of creating art is fascinating, to me it is less technique and more emotion. The modern art or avant-garde has always taken society as a catalyst, i mean as an avant-garde artist you have to be visionary and think well ahead of time so automatically your idea will be well ahead of any present society. Being from an artistic family helped me to look at society in a different way, it is just a metaphor for me. Like in the photoshoot of my upcoming collection both the male and female models are nude, which is an artistic approach from my side but is a taboo in various societies. But I think the family influence has given me the courage to be visionary and experiment on the extremes.
Erebus: What does the term “inspired fashion” mean to you?
Amal: To me it is a step where the designer is collecting inspiration from any source, can be emotional or very subjective to the colour or silhouette. Then utilising these inspirations to create a fashion collection, thus one can easily identify a story or idea behind the collection.
You can find selected pieces of Amal's work in our Erebus Pop Up Shop at 278 Hackney Road in East London until Friday November 18th.
