Walking Earthquakes and Elevate

It’s time to share a bit about the aesthetic philosophy of rOm.

To add value to an oversaturated market is a tough task. I inherently crave this feeling of addition, renewal, innovation. We live in a time, especially within this industry, where it is very hard to figure out an original concept. Many say, “Nothing is new, everything has already been done or created.” This is where I lose many. I refuse to believe that everything has been done before. For me, that way of thinking destroys the idea of wonder and the exploration of the new.

But to come up with something ‘new’, you have to rethink where you start from.
I personally believe that if you want to make something new, you have to start with a technical conviction, something fundamental about what already exists. That’s where ‘Elevate’ started for me. I wondered: how do you approach garment construction in a different way? Not in the way something is sewn, but in a more conceptual way, how garments exist in interaction with the body, and fabrics with fabrics.

This is when I started thinking about how three dimensionality is still such an unexplored territory within fashion. When you really look around, everything is ‘elevated’, a plane carried by standers to create more surface out of the same square meters. After you read this, observe it. Look for planes carried by poles, legs, standers. Your couch, table, bed, buildings, bridges, rails, it goes on and on. Since it is so efficient and used in shaping our world, why not in clothes?

I recently had this epiphany. We, within the context of ‘Elevate’, are walking earthquakes, and the fabric is the soil. How do you build horizontally on a surface that is constantly moving? It is a very interesting problem to try and solve. It is also a difficult one, because the range of application is extremely diverse.

Besides the technical challenge and the aesthetic distinctive look, ‘Elevate’ also serves as a symbol. A symbol of innovation and irony, because you can also ask, “Why?” Innovation sometimes isn’t about improving, in my opinion, but about broadening what is and what can be, because it is fun. The placement of ‘Elevate’ asks, “Can we innovate this?” as an open question, a dialogue for thought. The answer can be yes, it can be no, it can be fun, it can be cool. It can be whatever. It is proposing a dialogue.

Currently, nuts and bolts display this idea of ‘Elevate’. This is only the first of many future iterations of what ‘Elevate’ can become. The idea is that it will continue to develop as far as technology and budget allow within a garment context. Honestly, when I think about it, the possibilities feel endless, and I am excited to discover and show what it can become.