Dress, ...C’est le Pompon!,

2014

Flaka Jahaj tries in her work to open up the boundaries between design, fashion, art, and performance. The dissolution of traditional fashion design principles is integral to the very concept behind this garment. The modular pompom textile is based on the Lego principle: Jahaj has monochrome pompoms made by hand in many colors from acrylic yarn and then sewn into differently sized rectangular surfaces that can then be linked using additional but larger pompoms. This garment thus has no specific cut and no prescribed form; these are instead created by the wearer herself according to the occasion, her changing needs, and her own body. In this sense, the object is not only a dress but also a skirt, a jacket, a sweater, a top, or a stole. As a result of the (theoretically) unlimited number of ways it can be worn, getting dressed becomes a creative and interactive part of the design. This is really the limit: c’est le pompon! In Jahaj’s project, which won the Swiss Design Award in 2014, the design process, which was carried out using Lego bricks, stands in a genuine dialogue with the actual product and the process of dressing. A forward-looking design principle is manifested in which design adapts to social changes: C’est le Pompon! reflects the modular function of drag-and-drop in our everyday lives. (Franziska Müller-Reissmann)