Robert Tarasek

A former Plymouth College of Art Fashion student, previously studying ICT, came back to the College to talk about his experiences in the Fashion industry, his struggles with starting to learn about Fashion and then about his struggles and highlights in the industry itself.

After staying in Plymouth for a year after his graduation, working on his own collection, Robert moved up to London to work for a designer.

He found sketchbooks very had to manage, and college was quite limited, he prefers to use his sketchbook randomly sticking in all inspiration, not just specifics, tearing out pages that arent working, or tearing them out and rearranging them to form new links.

Tarasek has gained a lot of inspiration from the ever so famous Diana Vreeland over his years of being interested in fashion, 'They eye has to travel' is one of his favourite quotes, showing that you need to keep your eye open to everything and anything, inspiration can come from even the most remote of places.
His first ever collection was named 'Dunes' inspired by sand and Couture rather than specific designers. He prefers Couture as it is more technical than Haute Couture, as only 20 seams can be sewn using a machine and the rest has to be created by hand. He has this vision of bringing back all the old crafts such as hand embroidery etc. that the world has been losing and forgetting over the years. For example, after the old lace maker of Chanel died, he taught his craft to no one, so this wasn't passed on and hasn't been recreated.

Moving on to Rob's second year, he fell in love with pattern cutting, and that love continues through today, and discovered you need to be able to understand how to pattern cut in order to move your collections forward. At one point he worked at Alexander Mcqueen as a studio assistant, working with the pattern cutting archive, it was a lot of pressure as they had just 3 months to create a 48 look collection.

'Don't over complicate things.'

Tarasek is currently working for Marios Schwab, he finds Marios very inspiring, selling a lot to the middle East, and in London with a few boutiques and Selfridges. And there is no money pressure, he is able to do experimental work, whereas Mcqueen was very money focused and there was no time to be wasted experimenting. Rob is currently working on couture beading, draping, Oribotics (origami with fabric). 

'I prefer to network in person, but you have to be quite pushy'

Kansha No I!!

Charlotte

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