Lebanese designer Nathalie Trad is known for redefining the boundaries of traditional aesthetics through her architecturally influenced clutches. With a focus on working with natural materials, such as shell, mother of pearl, and wood, the luxury handbag designer aims to break the mold by transforming her designs into wearable art sculptures. Style.com/Arabia talks to Trad about her Fall 2015 collection and the influences behind her designs.
NOURIAH AL SHATTI: What pushed you to design handbags?
NATHALIE TRAD: Designing for me is a process that involves questioning everything in my surroundings in an attempt to reinterpret what I already know, being observational, and always trying to discover something new. Accessory design gave me the answer I had been seeking to the question: how do I take traditional shapes, ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and radically transform them, deconstructing and recreating them from a new perspective?
I didn’t want to just create accessories; I wanted to create wearable sculptures that broke away from the mold. When I put pencil to paper, I let my imagination go on an unrestricted journey of its own—and it led me to handbags.
What was your inspiration while designing the Fall 2015 collection?
Our Fall 2015 collection, Cipher 1.61, is a study of sacred geometry. It’s all about examining the golden ratio; the code that governs the proportions of our universe. When I looked into the world of sacred geometry, I caught a glimpse of the minute details of nature—the cornea of the eye, a nautilus shell, the branching of trees, the galaxy we spiral within, and all life forms that emerge out of timeless geometric codes. Starting with the initial act of sketching my designs, it has been a quest to unravel and reassemble this language through the sculptural harmony of shapes, materials, lines, and textures. This collection is our journey and visual interpretation of the universal geometric order.
Which new materials and techniques have you introduced for Fall 2015?
This season highlights some new inlay techniques that we have discovered along the way. The shades of ice blue are achieved by adding a layer of color under an iridescent white hammer shell, allowing us to reach this rich and complex hue. Another technique that we have developed as a way to repurpose the shell that we would normally discard is Lagnas; the process involves collecting offcuts of varied shells that have been meticulously and consistently crushed and then combined layer by layer to create a gradient effect as seen on the Kepler clutch.
In addition to regal tones of burgundy, rose gold, and ice blue, the collection features strong lines, graphic patterns, and distinct shapes, fusing an array of rich natural materials, such as wood, mother of pearl, and pāua blue shell, as well as hand-worked metals including copper and stainless steel.
