On the first pages of LIGNES DE FUITE volume three, Editor-In-Chief Milan Tanedjikov writes, “Originality is fleeing towards yourself,” a central theme which courses through the Canadian talent incubators latest iteration of their annual eponymous publication. LIGNES DE FUITE which translates to “Lines of Flight” in English is the brainchild of Tanedjikov who also works as a design teacher at College Lasalle in Montreal.
Photo: Jessy Colucci
The incubator, whose mission is to support Canada’s most promising fashion students and recent graduates by providing them with guidance, resources, and visibility is a one-of-a-kind platform in a country which notoriously provides little support or visibility to its burgeoning fashion creatives.
Volume III is a continuation of a concept which Tanedjikov has been proposing through LIGNES DE FUITE since its inception, “I borrowed this concept from a philosopher called Gilles Deleuze, and he talks about creativity as a process of going away from limits towards yourself. He doesn’t describe it as a process of going towards something, but rather as an escaping mechanism from a limit.” With the provision of essential resources for local creatives, namely resources, opportunities, funding, and creative community, Tanedjikov hopes with LIGNES DE FUITE, to remove the limitations which keep artists constrained. “I don’t want to be a monolith, you know, like, one style. I want to have this floral kind of representation of what the current generation is doing.” The result? A 373 page opus of unfettered creativity and expression, coalescing the particular uninhibited expression which can only emerge from a creative community based on collaborative ethos.
Comprised of 6 different sections the publication features a myriad of different media including artist process interviews, fashion editorials, rising artist features, words of advice, “zeitgeist declamations”, and collages of the incubator’s community oriented “drink & draws.” Proposed as a Deleuzian ‘Body Without Organs’, the publication provides a fluid and collaborative space for continuous transformation, empowering designers to experiment, adapt, and evolve their work. “I always try to create like this kind of blank canvas, or let’s say, a patch of fertile earth where this escape could be possible. Maybe it sounds poetic or far-fetched or something but my thinking is, ‘How can I create this neutral space, that can feature many different people, but also that it has this capacity to integrate many viewpoints…many different escapes?’”
Photo: Jessy Colucci
The imagery featured in the publication is frenetic and varied, vacillating from sketches, abstract painting, and point and shoot photographs to post-digital fashion photogrammetry and haute editorials, reflecting the myriad perspectives and processes of the LIGNES DE FUITE community. As for the written components, interviews with rising stars and LIGNES DE FUITE alumni Matieres Fecales and Emile Racine sit alongside advice columns from the likes of Parsons BFA Fashion Design Director, Marie Genevieve Cyr, and Paper Magazine’s Editor-at-Large Mickey Boardman. Elsewhere, poets muse through faux text conversations with ‘reality’ and designer’s work through the ins and outs of creative expression and artistic practices. The result is equalizing in a way that feels refreshing, a democracy of ideation and experimentation, where emerging artists engage and share space with established industry professionals seamlessly.
Photo: Jessy Colucci
Speaking on the Canadian fashion industry, Tanedjikov maintains that the distinctly Canadian landscape gave way to LIGNES DE FUITE and its successive volumes, “it’s natural… the environment pushes us towards creating something like this, because there wouldn’t be anything else; it’s kind of the only way to put it together.” Designed by Art Director Raphaël Viens, volume three is the sort of contemporary minimalist print publication that adorns the coffee tables of creatives with their ear to the ground. An ‘if you know you know’ cover contrasts a sharp sky blue matte finishing with a humble ‘3’ at the top right hand corner, the inner pages tell the rest of the story.
Cody is the Editor in Chief and senior contributor at liminul.
He is a photography aficionado, fashion enthusiast, avid Lana Del Rey fan, and lover of all things aesthetically pleasing.
and
