BIO
Artistic approach
Mélanie Loirat creates touchable textile wall pieces and sculptures that take shape and come to life in immersive installations, inviting the public to contemplate, with eyes open and closed, to touch and be touched...
She explores three-dimensional textiles in relation to the body and space. Passionate about live performance, theater and contemporary dance, she creates hybrid, transformable garment-objects, modular costume-sculptures, textile objects to be played with and explored : supple sculptures that she imagines taking shape and coming to life in a universe where everything is connected and in motion.
Experimentation lies at the heart of her creative approach. The exploration of materials and their sensoriality, and the pleasure of playing with visual and tactile compositions in volume. Then there's the desire to share time and space for contemplation and sensory exploration.
In dialogue with her textile work, she creates images. She experiments in series with different materials, shapes and colors, which she assembles into abstract compositions of graphic elements, floating, bouncing, taking flight...
Bubbles and waves of light watercolour, passages of deep Indian ink, spurts of charcoal strokes, embodiments of colours in oil pastel, imprints and collages of contrasting shapes, expressing organic universes in motion.
Melanie also experiments photographically in journeys through urban, natural and imaginary landscapes. Seizing the fleeting moment, keeping the traces that testify to a passage, a movement... she explores the vaporous and mysterious aesthetics of images taken with a broken digital camera that stretches images, draws lines, mixes shapes and hyper satures the colours, makes them disappear or fade away… She recently printed some of these pictures on light cotton fabric that gives her new ideas of exploration between image and textiles.
Career
Melanie studied fine art and fashion design in Paris. With her passion for the visual and performing arts, she has forged links between visual art and fashion. She approaches garments and accessories as sculptural objects in their relationship to the fabric, the body and the space in which it evolves. In the course of her studies, she developed a line of modular, multi-functional garments, presented in a fashion show featuring dancers transforming their garments.
She then worked with this same conceptual approach to clothing and accessories in the fashion and performing arts sectors with various artists and fashion designers (Impasse de la Défense, Lutz Huelle), fashion houses (Dior Homme, Bonpoint) as a fashion designer, alternating with theater and contemporary dance companies (Cie Les Demains qui Chantent, Carlo Locatelli with Cie Paco Dècina, Cie Soy Création, Cie Le Masque Calao) as a costume designer and visual artist.
In 2017, she left Paris to settle in the Drôme Valley in the south of France and take the time to live and develop her artistic practice, in a more sensory and human approach.
She pursues her collaborations with the performing arts, and enriched by encounters and sharing with artists from the valley, she realizes her dreams of textile landscape installations that continue to take shape and come to life.
In September 2023, dreaming of a place for artistic exploration, a work space that was both intimate and open to creative encounters, she opened "L'Atelier O" in her town of Crest, to offer workshops with other artists in a variety of artistic practices for all publics. And so her textile and graphic explorations continue in a fertile new space dedicated to creation.
CURRICULUM VITAE
EXHIBITIONS & ARTISTIC INSTALLATIONS
Nov 2023 Exhibition Au jour le jour #5, Galerie Espace Liberté, Crest (26), France. Series of graphic artworks.
Nov 2022 Installation Clouds, private order by Somatika Studio in Crest, France. Practice room for mind-body workshops.
Sept 2022 Exhibition Serene Sixteen, collective exhibition in appartment-galleries, in Valence (26), France.
Juin 2022 Exhibition On the Other Side, immersive and collective exhibition at the CoLLège in Crest (26), France.
2021-2022 Empreintes, France's fine crafts boutique / Sales exhibition of textile sculptures
2016-2017 Sentiers Buissonniers Textile creation for the installation-performance of the Compagnie Les Demains qui Chantent, Paris, France.
TEXTILE CREATION / SCENIC COSTUMES
2021 Nathalie Morazin, Stage costume creation of the pianist and singer for video shooting.
2007-2009 Smart, Creation of costume-objects for the Impromptu choreographic of contemporary dance by Carlo Locatelli / Compagnie Paco Dècina
2008 La Ronde, Costume design of the Arthur Schnitzler’s play / Stage direction Justine Heynemann / Compagnie Soy Creation
2007 La Noce chez les Petits Bourgeois, Creation of an ephemeral paper dress for Bertolt Brecht's play / Compagnie Soy Creation
2006 Les Cuisinières, Creation of costumes for C. Goldoni's play / Stage direction Justine Heynemann / Compagnie Soy Creation
2004 Casse-Noisette, Creation of modular costumes for Hoffmann's play / Stage direction Guylaine Laliberte
2003-2005 P’tite Souillure, Creation of the evolving costumes for Koffi Kwahulé's play / Stage direction Aïda Boulekbache / Compagnie Le Masque Calao
FASHION DESIGN
2015 Bonpoint, Ready-to-wear and Luxury fashion line / Baby Child Adolescent 0-16 ans > Accessories Designer
2012-2014 La Souris Ready-to-wear for Baby and Child > Creation of a fashion brand, design design of clothes and accessories for 0-2 ans.
2011-2012 Dior Homme in the studio of artistic director Kris Van Assche / Men’s Luxury Ready-to-wear - Paris > Accessories Designer
2008-2011 Lutz Huelle, Women’s Luxury Ready-to-wear – Paris > Accessories Designer and Lutz Huelle’s 1st assistant - Creative Studio Coordinator.
2008-2011 Polux, Fashion studio & Consulting > Fashion and graphic designer.
2008 Nelly Rodi, Consulting Fashion Agency – Paris > Trend forecasting / Fashion and graphic designer, illustrator.
2005-2007 Impasse de la Défense, Ready-to-wear for Men / Women – Paris > Fashion designer and model maker - workshop manager
2003-2005 Les Modulables, Luxury Ready-to-wear for women > Fashion designer and model maker
2003 Peclers, Consulting Fashion Agency – Paris > Fashion designer Assistant
2002 Anne Willi, Ready-to-wear for Women – Paris > Fashion designer and model maker Assistant
COMPETITIONS & STUDIES
2003 1st Prize / Mode Exp’éditions Competition, on the theme « New Materials, New Shapes »
Presentation of "Les Modulables" clothing line.
Support to Creation in 2003 et 2004, by The Mediterranean Fashion Institute and the Parisian Ready-to-wear Federation, Paris.
2000-2003 Fashion Design Studies / Atelier Chardon Savard, Paris.
1st Prize of the professional Jury of the 2003 promotion, Diplôme Niveau II - Fashion Designer
Arts Studies / University Paris 1, Paris.
1999-2000 Master's degree in Aesthetics and Art Sciences (Expression of the body through contemporary dance...)
1996-1999 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drawing, Painting, Silkscreen, Architecture, Scenography…)
DIRECTION ARTISTIQUE
Conception de projets Arts & Mode / Consultant créatif
CRÉATION / DESIGN
Mode & Art de Vivre : Vêtements et accessoires de mode / Jeux et Objets de décoration
Arts Vivants : Création de costumes et accessoires / Oeuvres plastiques et textiles
ARTS GRAPHIQUES
Illustration / Graphisme / Photographie / Peinture / Sérigraphie
CLIENTS & COLLABORATIONS ARTISTIQUES
DIOR HOMME / LUTZ HUELLE / BONPOINT / IMPASSE DE LA DÉFENSE / PECLERS / NELLY RODI...
LES DEMAINS QUI CHANTENT / CARLO LOCATELLI / LE MASQUE CALAO / SOY CREATION...