Exclusive: Meet the designer behind Lisas Reptilian Coachella Look

Cnn
–

Blackpink, member of Lisa, entered a huge black buffer despite the blasty California sun and joined the main stage of Coachella on Friday to be on the first solo appearance at the festival. The huge coat was led away within a few minutes and revealed a reptile bodysuit that was covered with head to foot scales. “She is the reptile villain,” said the designer of the look, Asher Levine, in a video call from his studio in Los Angeles. “It is very creature couture.”

Levine, who created an all -round stage for Lady Gaga, Grace Jones, Doja Cat, Christina Aguilera and Grimes, received the call to create both technologically advanced coachella coachella from Lisa less than a month before her performance date. “We have gone for a week and a half, day and night,” he told CNN in the days before the event. “I went to bed early on this interview last night.”

For her user-defined 3D reptile suit, Levine first accepted a body scan of the K-Pop star to capture her exact measurements, which he then uploaded to a digital tailor system that enables him to drap and adapt textiles on Lisas virtual avatar before the outfit goes into production. Next, he designed a unique geometric scaling pressure with AI and then exceeded the two-dimensional textile design to the sculpture department of his studio to act every single chute-and grinded the intermediate sheds of an icino. The designer, who describes himself as a “leather industrialist”, hopes to one day create cruelty -free versions of leather goods and exotic skins such as crocodiles and alligators.

“We no longer have to kill animals,” he said. “We can develop beyond that.”

Despite the help of digital tools, the reptile costume took over a handful of days with the smallest details, such as:

For Lisa’s second performance look-an essential catuit with glowing 3-D printed blue and pink-tasteful Levine looked at another area of ​​nature to be inspired.

“Many references were bioluminescent insects (and) translucent mushrooms with illuminated veins that ran through the petals,” said Levine. “People have been relating to nature for thousands of years: flowers, animal prints. But now (I think), what is exotic 2.0?”

For Levine, this approach meant prehistoric creatures with futuristic technology to merge-etwas, which he previously done with his Terrelli Clutch bag, which was inspired by the 300 million-year-old fish-dunkleosteus Terrelli.

“What I like to do with my designs is to create (and build) chimera organisms, a new, developed, exotic expansion of this figure,” he said.

Each of the 20-year-old shining tendrils worn by Lisa showed a fiber optic light that caused an extra terrestrical shine.

“We started experimenting with embedded lighting in 2011,” said Levine and remembered a decade before with the Grammy-based artist Will.i.am. “He said, ‘Can you embed lights in clothes?’ And I was very enthusiastic: “Yes, let us find out.”

Since then it has been for a variety of shows gaga, aguilera and grimes to spring lights and has perfected its use of flexible, glass -like materials for built -in luminosity. For her coachella performance, Lisa wore a number of clear petals on the chest that “looked like glass, but bent like leather,” said Levine, a flower sheet to the camera and manipulated it with his hands to demonstrate. “This is the future that Blade Runner has predicted.”

One of the biggest challenges for Levine is to produce a technologically progressive outfit that enables high octoons to move freely. After all, these are not a static appearance, such as those that could occur in a magazine editorial. “The construction of these pieces for a performance is literally like building for an athlete,” he said.

However, Levine acknowledges that a second -handed bodysuit can only address certain entertainers, but so far he has found like -minded customers who are trying to cross borders not only with their work, but also on their style.

“These are the types of people I focused on,” he continued. “This is what my customer is. You are the other, you are avant -garde. Asher Levine is not for everyone.”