Katharina Dubbick

I  look at how the body shapes a garment and how the two interrelate. With scent, I try to reveal the body rather than cover it up. 

During my time at the Royal College of Art I collaborated with International Flavours & Fragrances to develop the scent Soi-même: an olfactory self-portrait.

Your body odour is as unique as your fingerprint, but people often mask themselves with commercial fragrances – perfume or deodorant, which makes us smell the same. Soi-même body was the starting point for my collection.

Just as the scent amplifies your natural odour, parts of the body are enhanced by leather fragments, moulded to the individual wearer, like a second skin. 

They inform the knitwear structures, with their transparent sections revealing areas of the body beneath. There is a tension between materials – soft, draped knitted fabric contrasts with the hard, shiny-leather forms. Combining techniques enables me to capture the fluidity and individual sculptural language of the body.