Brazilian by origin and London by adoption, Karoline Vitto is an emerging designer whose work focuses on the beauty and sinuosity of the female body.

Her debut collection “The Body as Material” was the same one she presented as a thesis project, for the Royal College of Art of Central Saint Martin and was acclaimed worldwide by the most important realities such as Vogue, Dazed, iD, Harper’s Bazaar. With the second collection the brand debuts with the online store, currently the only way to buy the products of Karoline Vitto.

karoline-brand
Photography by Eva Sanchez

With her creations she enhances in a conscious way every shape and size. A garment is a functional tool for the body and is the material for the creation of a concept. Certainly celebrating those parts of the body that have always been pointed out as “wrong” and to be hidden. Elastic but sinuous materials, which adapt to “unconventional” shapes to enhance their aesthetics, with cut-out details, strings and laces.

In addiction, elements and fabrics are used in a structured way to highlight particularities of the body such as rolls, folds, stretch marks. A very different attention unlike many other designers who have always tried to obscure them.

Redesigning the concept of “body confidence“, without rigid aesthetic standards as a new freedom, where every kind of body, curve, shape can express itself freely. The garments are custom made and can be pre-ordered, without waste and unnecessary consumption. The pre-order is especially useful to fill the average size, or more generally the lack of diversity of women’s sizes, that slice of the “market” that is often found without many alternatives of choice.

Just think about the origins of the designer and the stages of her life, to understand how it is enormously a political and social issue. She was born and raised in a country characterized by specific aesthetic standards, the relationship with her body can only turn upside down in England. The cultural gap between the two countries is huge. On the one hand, there’s a leader in plastic surgery and retouching, on the other one an aesthetic that over time has become a bit low profile.

But contributing to her concept of body positivity were also the constant pressures and violations that women, and their bodies, have to undergo.

Karoline Vitto, not feeling comfortable in the canons that have been imposed, has made a deconstruction of the classic ideals thanks to the (re)discovery of her details of true beauty. So, the body-mannequin becomes the canvas on which to paint enveloping and soft garments that proudly show that roll that makes us feel uncomfortable. Thus, the catharsis: showing up with our main insecurities and proud “bugs”, destroying the barriers of the conventional that do not reflect us.

Needless to say, it is not a question of what is right and what is wrong. To clarify, it’s more a kind of education in awareness. It’s important to teach the new generations that one body is not better than the other and that all physicalities should be represented equally.