The mysterious, intelligent and revolutionary figure of the hacker is one of the main inspirations behind Shoop’s FW17 collection. We already spoke with them a few months ago and they told us that one of their greatest inspirations is music; but also, that one of Shoop's aims is to contribute to culture in general. Now, Miriam and Yohei, the founders of Shoop, have been inspired by love within the hacker culture. How? By taking the virus ILoveYou as reference. Surely many of you remember the virus that came disguised as a message that made you believe that someone was in love with you. This particular way of spreading love and the need for people to find it are the starting point of Shoop's latest collection.
The F/W 17 collection is inspired by hackers and anonymous people, but it also pays homage to the ILoveYou virus, one of the Internet's most famous. How do you relate the role of the Internet to your clothing?
We think hackers are contemporary revolutionaries and we really feel attracted to them. Also, while we were creating and designing this collection we felt really inspired by this figure of a half mysterious, half intelligent man
Why did you decide to dedicate a collection to the ILoveYou virus?
The name of the virus is really awesome! And we also thought about how interesting it was that it spread all over, and we got to the conclusion that everyone in this world is certainly looking for love.
Despite the entire cyber universe being the main influence in your collection, we can also see some garments that take heavy, protective workwear as reference. How do these two different worlds coexist?
Yes, they are very different concepts but we love to mix different things in one collection. Furthermore, we are really into the workwear and uniforms universe, so we usually reference this type of clothing in our collections.
Let's talk about the photos of the lookbook. You decided to go to Yatsugatake, a volcanic mountain range in Japan, to shoot them. Why did you choose this location?
One of the Sullen boys shared a story on his Instagram at this location, and Yohei asked what place it was because it looked like an abandoned and mysterious scene that seemed to be perfect for Shoop’s lookbook.
To what point do you feel involved in political / social themes? Is it the job of a designer (or a creative) to make his work a platform for denunciation, or do you prefer not to mix things up?
It is not our aim to mix political ideologies with fashion but we want to convey a certain attitude.
In the photos we can see a couple and, at some point, a betrayal occurs. We are living in a world where we are connected and exposed to other people's glances. What has changed in the concept of love, in the way that we love each other?
There is more information now and people are more open-minded, which means that, somehow, we hold out less to each other, but we think the way we love has not really changed.
