Organic Hybrid

A look at the street menswear collection inspired by the life in the depth of the sea.

Organic Hybrid was founded by Pavol Dendis

The main inspiration for the collection derived from the skin of cephalopods and their body-structure transformation ability. It is combining technology of photochromic pigments and shibori dyeing technique.

The idea of using photochromic prints started when I began researching biomimetic design and I found deep-sea animals, such as cephalopods — mimic octopus and cuttlefish and their skills to change body form & shape and most interesting changing colour and pattern of their skin in case of their background. I found this photochromic pigments interesting because they are changing colour in case of irradiation of UV light. I designed five different colour shades by using blue and yellow photochromic pigments. I screen printed colours on the textile surfaces (fabrics that were used in the collection) and measured photochromic data, such as colour without irradiation and colour after irradiation and due to this, I decided which two colour combinations to use in my collection.

The garment patterns are inspired by the skin of the cuttlefish and camouflage with a touch of gradations. All the textiles are screen printed by hand and encompass three different layers of photochromic colours. Without irradiation print is green-like and after irradiation prints change to blue and yellow-green shades. Some garments are dyed with the shibori technique because I wanted to incorporate a deeper blue into the collection.Since I was working on both parts of this collection — technological as well as practical/design, all the processes went hand in hand — it means in the design part I have to respect screen printing technology and conditions of the photochromic prints and in the technological part, I have to prepare colours that can be used on textile surfaces and will have expected colour shades.