Porcelain POLO shirt by Li Xiaofeng

Seven Halos | 06 September 2010 | art, Fashion | China, Extreme Couture, haute couture, LACOSTE, Li Xiaofeng, Paris, Porcelain POLO shirt, sculpture, The Porcelain Polo | 1 Comment

Li Xiaofeng is a muralist turned sculptor. His choice of material is not marble, wood or even glass, but rather shards of broken porcelain. He shapes and polishes them, drilling holes into each corner and linking them together with wire to create poetic pieces best described as ‘post-orientalism.’ His works usually take the form of clothing and are ‘wearable,’ although they certainly promise to be as heavy as armour.

LACOSTE challenged Chinese artist Li Xiaofeng to create two different polos for the 2010 Holiday Collector’s Series.

For the first, a printed polo, Xiaofeng chose a blue and white lotus & children design. The Lotus symbolizes purity and rebirth while images of babies represent fertility. Xiaofeng shaped and polished the shards as usual, but instead of drilling holes and linking them with wire, he photographed each piece (251 for men, 304 for women) and placed them in a life-size digital pattern. The final touch was dark blue ribbing and the white LACOSTE crocodile logo, the rarest in the brand’s collection.

For the second, Xiaofeng drew inspiration from the early Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644 AD) and wanted to reflect the mixing of the old and the new which echoes contemporary Chinese society. He painted porcelain bowls with images of a scholar surrounded by what is referred to as the ‘Four Gentlemen’ (orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum and plum blossom) accompanied by the LACOSTE crocodile logo and the phoenix, an important symbol of good fortune, opportunity and luck in Chinese culture.

It took Xiaofeng three full months to paint, fire, fragment, shape, polish, and finally link together the 317 shards to create the Porcelain Polo, which is the most expensive and most exclusive LACOSTE polo to date. The Porcelain Polo will be unveiled in Paris on 25 June at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.