text: Neoprene fabric has been enjoying the spotlight for quite a few seasons now but not quite like this. You see, for Norwegian designer Zita Merényi’s new Provo-CUT Collection, heat was used to fuse the edges of grey neoprene fabric. This in turn, gave the plastic-based material ‘scar lines’ rather than seams.
  Merényi told Dezeen, ‘This is a coat collection (row 1) where I use soldering instead of tailoring lines, which looks like scars, reflecting on the long term and temporary traces of mankind on the Planet Earth + on their own body, like scarification tattoos.’
  ‘These scar lines generate very new forms, which are plastic, sculptural, + look beautiful + strange at the same time,’ said Merényi, adding ‘I injure the textiles but then I heal up the cut holes with a paint layer’ (don’t you just love that?).
  Besides creating raised lines across oversized jackets, another technique used was creating handmade incisions, described by Merényi as a ‘laborious but soothing process’. The green dress actually has 8,000 incisions, demanding ’a slow workflow’ but still ‘very meditative’.
  Smaller incisions formed diagonal + vertical patterns across the front of two satin dresses (last image), while leaf shapes growing larger towards the hem, covered an ankle-length gown as shown below right. I just love all the skin that is exposed yet obscured by all of the lines created by Merényi in the dress above right.
  More detailed patterns were created by laser cutting, another technique used by Merényi.